Nature’s wrath is seen from time to time sometimes earthquakes somewhere, landslides somewhere. This time the torment of river, water and rain started. Cloud Burst in Amarnath. Again some pilgrims were killed. One end of Assam has been under water for the last one and a half months.
The floods in Assam have happened before and are still happening. It can be said that floods are an annual natural disaster in Assam. In the last seventy years, there has been no improvement in the flood control system in Assam. During this long period of post-independence many governments came and went but the suffering of the people of Assam did not go away. Forty villages in the Barak Valley of Assam are still submerged. The railway was completely destroyed and closed indefinitely. The driveway is deadly dangerous.
The government continues to help with various NGOs. Yesterday, a journalist friend sent a picture of a parent drowning two or three year old children in a boat made of banana peel. In the middle of it, the journalist asked and said that all their mud houses were melted in the water. They are walking towards the relief camp on a high place. When the journalist asked them about the food, they said that they have been eating whatever relief they have been getting for a month and a half. Sometimes biscuits, sometimes bread, or Chira Mudri, sometimes go to a high place and somehow boiled rice. Khichuri, Biscuits, Water,Clothes, etc. donated by Ramakrishna Mission and Bharat Sebashram Sangh have survived and others NGO you found in Silchar like Milaap, Rising Youth, Khalsa Aid, Hridoy NGO, Jubashakti NGO, Marwari Yuva Manch, Eco Alarmist, Young Mizo Association of Mizoram.
The journalist asked what they would do in the future. They said they were optimistic. They hope the water will recede in a few days and they will return home again. They will build their homes again with difficulty, but they will not be left without a home. God knows where to find the water where the water is boiling like the sea. Yet they have a new hope of building a new house. I am praying to God in my heart to fulfill their hope of building a new house. Find out where to start by losing everything.
(The article is solely the opinion of the author. The views expressed here are solely personal and not in any way connected to any organisation or any political party ).
Associate professor (Retd), Department of Zoology (HOD), Lumding College, Assam