Intense rain and floods in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam have killed 84 people and displaced more than 2.75 million since May, authorities said on July 20, as they tried to collect the bodies of nine rare rhinos drowned in the past 10 days.
Rescue teams were facing a double challenge of rising flood waters amid the novel coronavirus as villagers driven from their homes huddle in shelters.
Officials warned that the water level in the Brahmaputra river was expected to rise by 11 cm (4.3 inches), two weeks after it burst its banks swamping more than 2,500 villages.
Assam, famous for its tea plantations, is hit by flooding every rainy season despite flood-control efforts.
Rights groups accuse corrupt officials of siphoning off funds meant for flood projects, resulting in shoddy construction of embankments which are often breached.
Floods have also inundated the Kaziranga National Park, home to the world’s largest concentration of one-horned rhinoceros, with an estimated 2,500 out of a total population of some 3,000 of the animals, was on the brink of extinction at the turn of the century.
Kaziranga park is also a Unesco World Heritage site. But this year’s monsoon rains have almost 85% of the park under water.
“Nine rhinos have drowned and over 100 other animals have been killed,” Atul Bora, Assam’s agriculture minister said.
With the park waist-deep in water, rhinos, elephants and deer have been forced to seek refuge on roads and in human settlements.
Dozens of other animals, including deer, buffalo and porcupines, have also been died – many due to drowning, although others were hit by vehicles as they attempted to escape the floodwaters.
Across Assam, heavy rain has submerged thousands of villages. Hundreds of relief camps have been set up to shelter those displaced.
This year’s floods come as India struggles to halt the spread of coronavirus, with more than one million cases reported across the country, the world’s third-largest case load.
