Gangtok/Guwahati: The headquarters of Sikkim`s North district on Monday remained cut off from rest of the state as rescue teams struggled to access remote areas as the toll in floods rose to nine in Assam and four in Arunachal Pradesh.
With landslides blocking roads, rescue teams comprising personnel of Indo-Tibetan Border Police, army, Border Roads Organisation and state government personnel were finding it difficult to reach remote areas where 21 ITBP and BRO personnel were killed and eight were missing in flash flood and landslides on Saturday, official sources said.
Bad weather was also hindering helicopters from making sorties in the area. But they were trying to drop essential commodities in Chungthang, blocked at 36 places by a series of landslides and where there was no electricity or drinking water, the sources said.
A helicopter carrying Chief Secretary Karma Gyatso also could not land due to bad weather.
In Assam, the flood situation worsened with the Brahmaputra and its tributaries continuing to rise leaving nine persons dead and rendering 10 lakh people homeless in 16 districts, official sources said.
Three children drowned in a boat mishap at Makum near Sadiya in Tinsukia district last night while NDRF rescued 42 others, official sources said.
Two others died each in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts and one each in Sibsagar and Nalbari yesterday, the sources said.
The worst affected districts of Assam were Baksa, Barpeta, Darrang, Dhemaji, Dibrugarh, Golaghat, Jorhat, Kamrup (rural and metro), Lakhimpur, Morigaon, Nagaon, Nalbari, Sibsagar, Sonitpur and Tinsukia.
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who is in Japan, directed the administration to use helicopters and mechanised boats to step up rescue and relief operations.
PTI
