Why is Assam DROWNING? | Media Ignoring Floods | Dhruv Rathee

On 19th July, 2026, in the Sivsagar district of Assam, Prasanta Borthakur was sitting comfortably in his home.

Then at around 5 pm, suddenly, floodwater started to flow.

Their house was the highest in the entire area, where floodwater had never come before.

But on 19th July, within 2 hours, the floodwater reached their chest.

To escape, Prasanta laid down the chairs on the bed, and their family sat on these chairs all night.

Her father had never seen such a flood in his 95 years of life.

The entire village was submerged in water.

The other village nearby, Holang Katoni, was also experiencing the same.

Rekhamani Gogoi was at home with her 7-year-old son, when within an hour, water reached her chest.

First, she took shelter in a neighbour's house.

But it wasn't safe there either.

So at around 8 pm, the neighbours put Rekhamani on a tree with her children.

The mother and son spent the night on the same tree for 12 hours.

This story is not only about these two families.

For the past few days, thousands of people in Assam have been facing similar situations.

This is not being talked about in news channels.

But in the last 60 years, Assam is facing the worst flood.

More than 80 people have died.

And more than 200,000 people are affected.

But the most unfortunate thing is that this has become a yearly story in Assam.

The flood comes and causes a loss of thousands of crores People die and the government promises to deal with the flood Today through this meeting I have come to assure the people of Assam that give us another 5 years to make Assam flood-free.

The government of the Indian People's Party.

But nothing changes.

To understand why there is a flood every year in Assam, we need to know its geography.

If you look at the map, Assam is surrounded by two rivers, called the Brahmaputra and the Barak.

It is surrounded by mountains on three sides.

And to get water, there is only a small outlet from Bangladesh.

When water pours on these mountains, it all flows into Assam.

And because of this, 40% of Assam has always been flood-prone.

The flood that happened in Assam this time, is due to the rain in the mountains above.

On 18 and 19 July, in the Wokha, Mokokchung, and Mon districts of Nagaland, and in the Charai Dev district of Assam, it rained more than normal.

In Nagaland, it rained 137 mm within 8-9 hours.

Assam's government described it as the main cause of the flood.

In Mokokchung, it rained more than normal, and in Charai Dev, it rained 436%.

Within a few hours, the water in the Assam rivers crossed the danger level.

Specifically, the biggest river in Assam, Brahmaputra.

In the per-unit area, Brahmaputra is the river that carries the most sediments with its water.

These sediments are called Gath in Hindi.

They come from the soil and the mountains.

Brahmaputra originated in Tibet, and came to Assam from Arunachal Pradesh.

And this route is very unstable.

During the entire journey, the mountains keep falling down.

And a lot of sediments keep gathering.

The amount of sediments is so huge, that the world's largest river, the Amazon River in South America, has 5.5 times more sediments than that in the Brahmaputra, per square kilometer.

Since there is a lot of sediment in the mountains, all the sediments keep flowing along with the river.

But suddenly, as soon as the Assam planes arrive, the sediment suddenly decreases.

the water speed of the river also decreases, and all these sediments start accumulating here.

Because of this, every year, the riverbed of Brahmaputra gradually rises a little.

And the water carrying capacity of the river decreases, and the water starts to spread in the surrounding areas.

The numbers are very shocking.

In the survey between 1912 and 1928, Brahmaputra spread to 3,870 square kilometers.

But by 2006, this same area 6000 square kilometers.

In many places, the Bhramaputra River's width has increased by 15 kilometers.

And this is nothing new.

This chain of events was slowly moving for centuries.

And then, on 15th August 1950, an earthquake of 8.6 magnitude hit Assam.

Landslides were heavy.

Mountains collapsed and fell into the Bhramaputra River.

The sediments accumulated in such a large quantity that the river's route was suddenly closed.

But the water was so strong that it was impossible to stop it.

So the river made another way.

Along with the sediment its riverbed rose even higher The riverbed of Brahmaputra at Dibru Ghar rose up to 10 feet Because of that one earthquake It was so devastating that it was called the Boliya Water The water flowing out of madness.

After the earthquake, the flood started to intensify in Assam.

The Brahmaputra started to change its course every year.

What happened was that sometimes, floods came in new areas.

Sometimes, the old flood-prone areas were so dry, that there was no water left.

The flood map is written in new lines every decade.

And something similar happened this year.

Floods in Assam usually occur in the districts on the banks of the Brahmaputra.

Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Barpeta, Morigaon.

These are the names that are heard in every monsoon.

But this year, the three districts that were the most affected by the floods, were the ones that were still in the state of emergency.

Charai Dev, Jorhat, and Shiv Sagar.

The people here say that even their grandparents had not witnessed such a terrible flood.

Such a terrible flood had recently occurred in 1950.

That earth is a different story.

Assam's Chief Minister, Himanta Biswas Sharma, has also said that the people and officials of these districts were not at all ready for it.

Because there is no history of such a terrible flood here.

856 villages in 12 districts have been completely submerged in the flood.

Millions of people have been affected by it.

The flood has taken away their homes from 700,000 people.

and 3 lakh people were forced to live in relief camps.

The question is, what is the government doing in all this?

The leaders of the Assam government have always promised to find a solution to the flood.

But this promise was limited to speeches.

In the 2016 Assembly elections, the BJP promised to make Assam flood-free.

They came to power, but Assam was not flood-free.

There was a flood in 2017.

160 people died.

In 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, there was a flood every year.

And every year, about 100-200 people died.

In 2021, when it was time for the Assembly elections, Home Minister Amit Shah repeated this promise in almost every rally.

The government of the Indian People's Party will make it flood-free.

And this year, when the Assembly elections took place in April, 2026, the BJP repeatedly made a flood-free manifesto to talk about a flood-free Assam.

But once again, Assam has been in the worst flood of 60 years.

For the last 10 years and the next 5 years, there has been only one government in Assam.

Isn't this enough time to make Assam flood-free?

There is only one solution to the flood.

Embankments on the banks of the Brahmaputra.

That is, building walls of concrete, cement and soil.

Until now, there have been about 4,800 km long embankments in Assam.

But whenever a big flood comes, when it is most needed, it cannot provide any protection and breaks.

7 years ago, in 2019, I made a video on Assam floods.

And in this video, I told in detail that embankments are of no use in Assam.

But every year, this happens in the name of controlling the floods.

Some new embankments are built, and the repair of old embankments.

Researcher Partha Das says that the nexus between contractors, officers and politicians wants the embankments to keep on breaking so that the repair business continues and they keep earning money from the commission Similarly the government also focuses on dredging to stop floods Dredging means removing sediments from the river through bulldozers Through machines But this is not practical either

Because the faster the sediments are removed, the faster they come back.

Look at the government's website.

The ASAM Water Resources Department website clearly states that to reduce the problems of floods and erosion in the region, no long-term steps have been taken.

only take short-term and immediate steps.

Even in 2024, when Assam was in a flood, Prime Minister Hemanta Biswas Sharma said that the flood in Assam comes from a geographical factor, which is out of the control of the government.

This is true to some extent.

But it is also true that the government is taking some reverse steps here.

Because of which, the situation is becoming more and more dangerous.

Apart from natural and geological factors, two other major causes behind floods in Assam are mentioned.

Climate change and deforestation.

Due to climate change, the previous rains were in the months, now it's the same in a few days.

And the rains are increasing by 50-100 mm per day.

The floods are becoming more intense than before.

They are causing more destruction.

Similarly, after deforestation, when the land is barren, the water comes down more rapidly.

And it brings more soil along with it.

The unfortunate thing is that instead of controlling these factors, the government was cutting down trees in the name of development.

They were constantly mining.

Which caused more soil in Brahmaputra.

The most shocking thing is that no floodplain zoning law has been passed in Assam.

The zoning law states how far the river should be, how to build a house, where to farm, and where to stop farming.

In 1975, the Central Government sent the states to make a model of floodplain zoning.

But Assam has not passed this bill yet.

Now, after hearing all this, you might wonder, what is the solution here?

Professor Parimal C. Bhattachar, who studied at Guwahati University, says, that controlling the rivers, and inviting more disasters, considering these geographical conditions, we need to learn to live with floods.

It is not possible to stop floods from coming to Assam.

but it is possible to prevent the damage caused by the flood.

Living with a flood means building houses in high places.

Because the higher the damage, the more the houses are in poor condition.

Apart from this, high platforms should be built in every village.

Where there is drinking water, sanitation, and healthcare facilities.

Forecasting and early warning systems should be strengthened.

Disaster management training should be given at every panchayat level.

In the 1990s, The Assam government had also started a living with floods scheme.

But after corruption allegations, this scheme was taken back.

This kind of scheme needs to be brought up with transparency.

Along with this, the government needs to fix its system with relief efforts.

A video went viral, in which the food packets given by the government to the people, were all food waste.

Because they were thrown into the flood water.

It is important to educate people on this.

And even if the government does something, I have made a free PDF guide for you.

What to do if floods come What are the do and don in a situation like the flood How exactly should you prepare And this guide will not only be useful for the people of Assam but for everyone wherever the flood comes from Be it Bihar Mumbai or Gurgaon It is completely free to download.

You will get its link pinned in the comments.

And you can download it and share it with your family and.

So that the next time a flood comes in your area, you are prepared for it.

It may seem simple to listen to, but this is the solution.

Look at a country like Japan.

Japan is the most unlucky country in the world, geographically.

The number of earthquakes and tsunamis that occur there, is the number of times that it occurs in any other country.

On top of that, the volcanoes keep exploding.

But the government and people there, have learned to live with these disasters.

For earthquakes and tsunamis, there are forecasting and early warning systems. As soon as an earthquake is about to occur, people get alerted.

People are told to go to safe places.

In every village and district, disaster management training has been given.

People have been told how to avoid these things.

What to do in such situations.

All the newly built houses have been made earthquake proof.

This is the reason why 2 years ago, when Japan faced a very powerful 7.6 magnitude earthquake, followed by a tsunami, it didn't cause as much damage as it would have in a country with such intensity.

What exactly did their government take steps to do here?

and why Japan is such an unlucky country.

If you want to understand this in depth, you can watch this video.

I have explained it in detail in this video.

By clicking here.

Thank you very much.