Guwahati, Aug 8: Rapid destruction of forests and topsoil in the mountains of Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh have led to three successive waves of flash floods in Assam, state minister for flood control Pramod Gogoi said here today. Talking to The Indian Express, Gogoi said that while the first wave of floods was due to the burst of a natural dam in the upper reaches of the Siang, the most important tributary of the Brahmaputra, the recent floods were caused by the rivers running down from the Bhutan hills. "There were also reports of a dam burst in China, from where the Tsangpo flows into Arunachal Pradesh as Siang to become the Brahmaputra last month," he said, quoting Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Mukut Mithi. It may be recalled that the flash floods in Siang had almost washed away the Arunachal town of Pasighat and the Upper Assam town of Dibrugarh in the last week of June. "Last week, all the south-flowing tributaries of the Brahmaputra originating in Bhutan too have caused havoc in the Lower Assam districts of Nalbari, Kamrup, Barpeta and Bongaigaon," the flood control minister added. In Nalbari district at least 1.75 lakh people in 220 villages have been affected by the floods, with the authorities opening more than 75 relief camps to accommodate them. Similarly in adjoining Kamrup district, the total number of people affected has been put at 2.5 lakhs, with the government setting up 55 relief camps during the past one week. Both Nalbari and Kamrup share international boundaries with Bhutan. In Bhutan, flash floods have virtually washed away the entire Pashakha village, with the death toll put at around 200. Road communication between Chukha and Thimphu and also between Phuntsoling and the rest of the Himalayan kingdom has remained cut off since last Thursday. Flood control minister Gogoi said the Brahmaputra and its tributaries have caused major breaches on enbankments and dykes in as many as 54 spots, with the Brahmaputra alone causing breaches at three places. Rangiya has been the worst affected with as many as eleven breaches caused by the Nona, Puthimari, Baraliya and Pagladiya, the minister said. All these rivers have their sources in Bhutan, where massive depletion of forest cover has taken place in the past few years, he added. Luckily for Assam, there has not been much rain in the hill states of Nagaland and Meghalaya, from where the southern tributaries of the Brahmaputra flow down, Gogoi pointed out. He also quoted the Arunachal Chief Minister as saying that he (the latter) has recently directed the district authorities to take stern measures against large-scale felling of trees. It may be recalled that during the first wave of flash floods, large number of valuable cut logs had come down the Siang to the Brahmaputra, indicating how large-scale illegal felling of trees has been in Arunachal Pradesh. Gogoi himself said today that during the first wave of floods, the people living along the Brahmaputra in Upper Assam collected logs worth at least Rs four crore from the river. Meanwhile, chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta said here today that while the floods have left a devastating effct in as many as 14 out of the state's 23 districts, his government has left no stone unturned to help the distressed people."The government has promptly taken up relief and rescue operations in all the districts, with the Army also playing a vital role in assisting the civil authorities," Mahanta said. He announced that there has been no dearth of funds to carry out the relief operations, with his government being able to convince the Centre to release money from the Calamity Relief Fund on time. The size of this year's corpus of the Calamity Relief Fund was Rs 83.54 crore, with the total budget including the share of the the Centre and the state standing at Rs 125.74 crore, Mahanta added.
