More than one million people hit as floods worsen in Indian

Indian: More than 1.2 million people in northeast India have been hit by floods which have inundated hundreds of villages, flooded large areas of farmland and destroyed roads, bridges and telecommunications services.

Ceaseless monsoon rains in state of Assam have pressured the expanding Brahmaputra river and its tributaries to break their banks, with more than half of the region's 32 districts affected.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority said;

"District authorities have opened 220 relief camps and 130 relief distribution centres that house a total of 88,133 inmates,"

The National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force and Indian army are helping the district administration in evacuating affected people to safe places and distributing aid, the statement added.

The Brahmaputra, Assam's main river is fed by Himalayan snow melt and monsoon rain, and has been overflowing in many areas along its way.

The disaster management authority said 18 districts has been affected by the floods while more than 2100 low-lying villages and almost 100,000 hectares of crops have been partially or totally inundated in upper Assam.

The fast-flowing waters have also ruptured barriers and destroyed embankments, leaving some parts of national and state highways unmotorable, complicating efforts to rescue trapped villagers and disperse food aid such as rice, lentils and oil.

Officials said over 60 per cent of region's famed Kaziranga National Park, home to two-thirds of the world's threatened one-horned rhinoceroses, is also underneath water, leaving the animals more vulnerable to illegal hunting.