Dibrugarh: A viral video from Arunachal Pradesh’s easternmost district of Anjaw has drawn attention to the alarming lack of basic connectivity in the border region after visuals emerged showing women crossing the swollen Ampani river by inching along a bare steel wire to reach their farmland.The clip, which has been circulating widely on social media, shows several women gripping ropes for balance as they make their way across the river one careful step at a time, with the rushing water visible just below. With no bridge linking their villages to fields on the other side, the makeshift wire crossing remains their only available route.Locals said the crossing is used almost daily by farmers travelling to and from their fields, but the risk multiplies manifold during the monsoon, when the Ampani swells rapidly . “We have no other way to reach our fields. This wire is all we have, and every day during the rains, we cross not knowing if we will make it safely to the other side,” a village resident was quoted as saying in captions accompanying the video.An elderly man from the area, reacting to the footage, said the community has long demanded a proper bridge. “Our children, our women, our elderly all depend on this crossing. We have raised this issue for years, but nothing has changed on the ground,” the resident said.The video has renewed concerns about infrastructure in Anjaw’s more remote pockets, where daily life depends on fragile and frequently perilous access to farmland, health centres, schools and local markets. Anjaw, headquartered at Hawai, lies along India’s border with China and is among the country’s least accessible districts, with several villages connected only by seasonal footpaths, hanging bridges or improvised crossings like the one seen in the video.During the monsoon, swollen rivers routinely cut off habitations across the district, disrupting movement of people and goods and, at times, leaving villages isolated for days. Arunachal Pradesh’s border belt, including Anjaw, regularly records some of the heaviest rainfall in the country, compounding the risks faced by residents who rely on such crossings.
A woman crosses the Ampani river with the help of a wire
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