Photo by EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Assam flood death toll passes 100 as 7 lakh people displaced
More than 100 people have been killed and 700,000 displaced in Assam’s floods, with 1.2 million impacted overall as questions grow over the role of mining alongside heavy rainfall.
Assam’s flood death toll has passed 100, with 700,000 people displaced and 1.2 million impacted overall as the disaster continues to unfold.
Roughly 2,700 villages have been destroyed, with Sivasagar district in upper Assam among the hardest hit, alongside Mon district across the border in Nagaland.
The floods followed heavy rainfall in the Naga Hills between July 18 and 20, triggering sudden surges in tributaries that feed into Assam’s low-lying areas.
A local vlogger described the destruction, saying trees as tall as 30 to 40 metres came down from the hills and homes were completely wiped out, calling it “a tsunami.”
Government officials have attributed the disaster mainly to excessive rainfall and climate change, while opposition legislators and researchers argue unregulated riverbed mining has made things worse.
One particularly tragic account involves two friends of different faiths who died together, after a Hindu man drowned while trying to rescue a Muslim woman swept up in the floodwaters.
Assam floods almost every year during the monsoon, but this year’s disaster was unusual in that floodwaters from cloudburst-driven tributary surges arrived before the Brahmaputra itself reached peak levels, catching low-lying areas off guard.
The worst-hit districts include Sivasagar, Charaideo, Jorhat and Golaghat in upper Assam, along with Mon district across the border in neighbouring Nagaland.
Researchers point to unrestrained stone mining along riverbeds such as the Dikhow as a contributing factor, arguing it has stripped away the natural cushioning that once absorbed flood surges.
Deforestation data shows Nagaland lost 14 percent of its tree cover between 2002 and 2025, with Mon district among the worst affected, a factor experts say has worsened runoff into Assam’s rivers.
Government officials have attributed the scale of the disaster primarily to unusually intense rainfall and climate change, while opposition legislators have pushed back, blaming unregulated mining operations.
Photo by EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0