Second major flood in a year for northeast India

Assam, India has been hit with their second major flood in a year. Over a million people have been displaced away from the rising Brahmaputra river. Experts say that poorly managed levees are contributing to the problem.

From Reuters Alert Net, writer Biswajyoti Das tells us more about the latest humanitarian emergency.

Floods and landslides caused by relentless rain in northeast India have killed at least 33 people and displaced more than a million over the past week, officials said on Monday.

At least 21 people were killed in landslides and another eight were missing in the mountainous state of Sikkim, said state government spokesman A.S. Tobgay.

In Assam, still recovering from deadly floods that hit the tea-growing state in July, eight people were killed and 20 were missing, police said.

Floods displaced nearly one million in that state alone, and many were now sheltering in camps or beside roads, which tend to be built above the land they pass through, a senior official in Assam's disaster management authority said.