29 dead in nine days in northeast floods & landslides

GUWAHATI: At least 29 people have lost their lives to nature's fury in nine days in three NE states - Assam,

Meghalaya

and

Arunachal Pradesh

- which have been reeling under severe

floods

and landslides.

Accordign to ASDMA, four more deaths in floods have been reported on Saturday, which has taken Assam's death toll to 18 (13 in floods and five in landslides) since May 14, three persons have died in Meghalaya flash floods since May 13 and eight more have died in flash floods and landslides in Arunachal Pradesh since May 16.

Worst-hit Assam showed signs of returning to normal after the number of affected population came down marginally to 6.8 lakh from 7.11 lakh on Friday. But the number of people taking shelter in relief camps remained almost same, according to Assam State Disaster Management Authority.

In Arunachal, the body of a missing woman was recovered in Itanagar on Friday from the debris created by landslides. Bodies of two men were recovered from the same spot earlier after a mudslide crushed their house. Bodies of two labourers were buried under debris following a landslide was recovered in Itanagar on Monday, while three others had lost their lives in Kurung Kumey district earlier. In Meghalaya, which has received 'large excessive' rainfall, has so far reported one death on last Saturday and two on last Friday in East Khasi Hills district. Assam SDMA on Saturday said the public health engineering department has been asked to make arrangements to supply sufficient water to over 4,000 pre identified relief camps in the state and NHAI assured to restore the national highway from Jatinga to Harangajao in Dima Hasao district within one week.

The ASDMA has deployed nodal officers along with the satellite phones for sharing of information from the disaster site to test the emergency communication and efforts for rapid damage assessment have been escalated to have a holistic idea of losses to undertake an informed recovery program.