More than 100 people have been killed in this year’s Assam floods, with 700,000 people displaced and 1.2 million impacted overall, as the scale of the disaster continues to widen.
Around 2,700 villages have been destroyed by the flooding, which hit hardest in the Sivasagar district of upper Assam and spilled across the border into Mon district in neighbouring Nagaland.
The flooding followed heavy rainfall in the Naga Hills between July 18 and 20, which triggered sudden surges in tributaries feeding into Assam’s lowlands.
A local vlogger described the scale of the destruction, saying trees as tall as 30 to 40 metres came down from the hills and that entire homes were wiped out, calling it “a tsunami.”
Government officials have pointed to excessive rainfall and climate change as the primary causes, while opposition legislators and researchers argue that unregulated mining along riverbeds has played a direct role in worsening the damage.
One of the most tragic accounts to emerge involved two friends of different faiths who died together, after a Hindu man drowned attempting to rescue a Muslim woman caught in the floodwaters.
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.
The Brahmaputra river’s heavy sediment load steadily weakens embankments over time, and nearly 40 percent of Assam’s total land area is considered vulnerable to flooding in a typical monsoon season.
Photo by EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
