Why it cannot be business as usual for Assam as it rebuilds from floods

Assam's flood season has turned deadly this year, killing ninety-seven people and displacing more than twelve lakh residents, according to Scroll.in. The worst damage hit Upper Assam's Sivasagar and Charaideo districts, areas that researcher Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman notes have rarely seen flooding this severe before. Rahman, who studies the Brahmaputra river basin and climate issues in the region, tells Scroll.in that calling these floods "unprecedented" glosses over lessons that should have made them predictable, pointing to past human interventions on the river system and historical flood patterns in the region.

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