Monsoon rains wash away 5 villages in India

2009-07-05 10:53:03 -

GAUHATI, India (AP) - An overflowing river swollen by heavy monsoon rains washed away five villages in India's remote northeast, forcing nearly 4,000 residents to flee to makeshift relief camps, an official said Sunday.
Nearly 300,000 people in Assam state have seen their homes flooded in several days of nonstop monsoon rains, including nearly 100,000

people marooned on an island in the Brahmaputra River.
No deaths have been reported since the rains began Wednesday.
As water and large chunks of mud flowed into the villages in Nagaon district on Saturday, residents abandoned their homes and moved to higher ground along the banks of the Brahmaputra, said Assam state Revenue Minister Bhumidhar Barman.
Authorities put them in makeshift relief camps and gave them rice, lentils and water purifying tablets, the minister said. The area is nearly 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of Gauhati, the capital of Assam.
The monsoon rains usually hit India from June to September. Last week, the Brahmaputra breached a 328-foot (100-meter) stretch of a newly built embankment in Assam's Lakhimpur district.
At least 300 villages in the district, about 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Gauhati, have been flooded after the breach.
Monsoon floods hit Assam, a state of 26 million people, almost every year, with heavy rains swelling the Brahmaputra and its innumerable tributaries that crisscross the state. Last year, millions of people were forced to temporarily abandon their homes.