On 19 July, Bornali Baruah and her husband rescued his 97-year-old mother from rising waters in Charing village by placing her on a makeshift raft of banana trunks and wading to safety. The floods, part of a wider crisis across Assam, have killed 100 people and affected nearly 1.2 million across 25 districts, damaging thousands of homes and forcing tens of thousands into relief camps. Experts blame intense rainfall, increased sedimentation from hill-cutting and deforestation, and unplanned infrastructure — and call for basin-scale planning. Baruah, who lost much of her livestock and property, plans to adapt her home rather than leave.
97-Year-Old Rescued On Makeshift Banana Raft As Devastating Assam Floods Displace Millions
A woman wades through floodwaters outside her inundated house at a village in Assam's Sivasagar [AFP via Getty Images]
Shortly after midnight on 19 July, as floodwaters tore through Charing village in Assam’s Sivasagar district, Bornali Baruah and her husband faced a desperate choice: how to save his 97-year-old mother, Lokada Duarah.
Baruah quit journalism to concentrate on animal husbandry [BBC]
Lokada, largely bedridden and unable to walk, could not be carried. With no boat, no rescue team and no neighbour available, the family improvised a raft from banana trunks. Supporting one another with hands and sticks, they waded slowly through the chest- to head-high current for about an hour until they reached a shelter set up on a nearby national highway.
A 97-year-old Lokada Duarah was carried onto a banana tree trunk and taken to safety after floodwaters rose around her home [BBC]
"Everyone was trying to save themselves," Baruah recalled. When they escaped, water around the house was three to four feet deep; the interior of the single-storey, eight-room home would later reach roughly five feet.
A boy uses a makeshift banana raft to navigate floodwaters in Assam [Anadolu via Getty Images]
Personal Loss Amid A Widespread Disaster
Baruah, 40, had left journalism in 2016 to focus on animal husbandry and by 2019 had been named Assam's "Best Livestock Farmer." Her enterprise had grown to include hundreds of animals and fish ponds. She says most of her livestock and equipment were destroyed: only about 60 of roughly 300 goats survived, and she lost hundreds of ducks and chickens, much of her fish stock and the machine used to make animal feed. Furniture, laptops, vehicles and a family library were also ruined. None of her livestock was insured.
Baruah and her family abandoned their home nearly a day after the water began rising [BBC]
The local scene in Charing is part of a much larger catastrophe across Assam. Official figures put the death toll at 100. In the latest wave, ten districts and 456 villages were reported affected in the immediate assessment, directly impacting about 140,000 people with 52 relief camps set up. More broadly, nearly 1.2 million people across 25 districts have been affected, more than 19,000 houses damaged and over 75,000 people sheltered in 252 relief camps.
A family shelters inside a tent in Sivasagar district, among more than 5,000 people lodged in 252 relief camps [Getty Images]
Why Flooding Reached New Areas
Geographers say flooding is a natural feature of the Brahmaputra valley, but its frequency, intensity and reach have increased. Dhrubajyoti Sahariah, professor of geography and director of the Centre for Brahmaputra Studies at Gauhati University, points to continuous heavy rainfall in Upper Assam and neighbouring Nagaland's Mon district that triggered widespread inundation and large-scale silt deposition.
Amit Giri holds a photo of his father, Siv Sankar Giri, who died in the floods, outside their damaged home in Sivasagar. He is among 100 people killed in the floods. [Getty Images]
Sahariah adds that land-use changes have amplified the impacts: more settlements on active floodplains, deforestation, hill-cutting and mining have increased sediment loads, and many roads, embankments and other infrastructure were constructed without fully accounting for the region's shifting hydrology. He urges basin-scale planning and stronger coordination between states to manage the Brahmaputra system effectively.
Only 60 of Baruah's goats survived the floods [BBC]
Recovery And Adaptation
Baruah and her family spent 10 days in a relief camp, where they faced five days without electricity or mobile connectivity. Government relief kits provided basic rations, and neighbours and strangers in the camps helped care for surviving animals. She has returned to the area and is temporarily staying with a neighbour, hoping to move back within a week.
Baruah says she will not leave Charing. Instead she plans practical adaptations: raising her house foundation, creating an elevated refuge platform, and pre-stocking food and drinking water. She is unsure how she will finance these measures but accepts that learning to coexist with floods is now part of life.
"If we regain our economic and mental strength, life will return to the way it was before," she said. "We will have to learn to coexist with the floods."
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