Guwahati: Villages vanished underwater within hours, driving terrified residents onto trees and rooftops as the raging Dikhow unleashed death and destruction across Sivasagar.Hundreds of F&ES, NDRF and SDRF personnel rescued thousands of marooned people, including a schoolboy and his mother who spent nearly 24 hours perched on a tree in Nazira.Originating in Nagaland’s Zunheboto district, the river tore through Bihubor, inundating villages, killing livestock and damaging houses. Local F&ES and SDRF teams led initial rescue operations across 16 villages before reinforcements arrived.“The villages along the banks of the Dikhow river, including Hiloni Nepali Khuti and Natunbasti Signal Basti, have been wiped out. People were scared. The rescue teams braved all the challenges and ventured into floodwaters with high currents to rescue people over days and nights. Elderly people, children, infants and sick people were rescued,” a source said.Strong currents carried bamboo, uprooted trees, stones and other debris, posing severe risks to rescuers.“We did not know where the debris or sharp objects were under the water. In that condition, it was a major challenge for us to take the rubber boats to rescue the marooned people,” the sources added.Around 15 rubber boats were punctured or damaged by submerged sharp objects and stones. At some locations, about 30 boats were deployed in a day.“Floodwaters receded from some areas within two to three days, but the situation remained highly uneven. One stretch of nearly a square kilometre would still be submerged, followed by a few kilometres of only silt and mud, only for the next area to be underwater again. Under such conditions, rescue teams had to deploy multiple boats within the same village, as a single team could not navigate continuously through the disconnected patches of floodwater,” the source added.Around 300 personnel, equipped with about 50 rubber boats, conducted rescue and relief operations for nearly 10 days.While floodwaters receded quickly from Bihubor and Sontok, they remained trapped in low-lying Betbari, Nemaijan and Ligiripukhuri. Betbari’s roads and railway boundaries made drainage particularly difficult.
