GUWAHATI: Hiloni Nepali Khuti, a thriving village in Assam’s Sivasagar district, along the banks of the Dikhow river, consisting of around 200 Gorkha families, has been wiped out by the devastating floods.Once a hamlet of happy souls, it is now reduced to just a barren stretch of sand and debris.Located barely 500 metres from the Dikhow and 3 km from the Assam-Nagaland border, Hiloni Nepali Khuti’s fortunes changed forever on the fateful afternoon of July 19, when the river tore through its settlements and swept away homes and families, after a bout of torrential rain in Nagaland led to a massive increase in its volume.Until that morning, the river was a familiar and friendly sight, but all that changed after it rendered an entire settlement, relying primarily on dairy farming to Nazira and nearby towns, homeless.On that fateful morning, the villagers had gone to collect logs and firewood from the Naga Hills downstream – an annual monsoon ritual. Moments later disaster struck, when the river tore through the village and swept away homes, cattle sheds and nearly 4,000 cattle.Today, with only a handful of livestock, the residents are trying to claw their way back to normalcy, albeit with little hope.Livelihoods? lost to raging watersAll the villagers went to collect the logs and firewood carried by the river from Nagaland hills. We collect those every monsoon. We were very happy. But, we noticed rapid increase in water level and increase in quantity of firewood in the water. Thereafter, the water engulfed the entire village and swept everything without leaving an opportunity for us to save our belongings,” Balaram Sharma (38), a resident, said.His family took refuge for two days at an elevated landing in his residence, before they were rescued on the third day. He sent his elderly parents, wife and 3-year-old daughter to Namrup in Dibrugarh. He had 23 cattle, of which 16 were swept away by the floods.Similar to Balaram, Prakash Sharma (35), too, managed to save his family members, but lost 56 of his 60 cattle to the Dikhow’s outburst. He saved his four cattle with the help of security forces on July 27, eight days after the floods had hit their village.Flood toll rises to 78, over 3L affectedAssam’s flood death toll rose to 78 on Wednesday after three more bodies — two in Sivasagar and one in Golaghat —were recovered, even as over three lakh people remained affected across seven districts. According to ASDMA, the floods have affected 3,00,031 people in 551 villages under 21 revenue circles. The deluge has also inundated 21,523.08 hectares of cropland.
