Assam’s flood death count increased by seven on Wednesday to reach 66. The water level, however, improved across the State.

Officials of the State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said three of the seven people who drowned on July 15 were from Morigaon district. Two were from Barpeta and one each from Sonitpur and Golaghat districts.

Number of displaced people decreases

“In two waves of floods over almost two months, 66 people have met a watery grave while 26 more were buried alive in landslips induced by heavy rainfall. But the situation has improved slightly with the number of displaced people decreasing overnight from 44,108 to 36,320 across 249 relief camps in 19 districts,” an ASDMA spokesperson said.

Though the number of flood-affected districts has come down from 28 to 26, the number of affected people has increased by 2.8 lakh to 35.74 lakh.

The area of affected farmlands remained constant at 1.28 lakh hectares.

Western Assam’s Dhubri district displaced Barpeta as the worst-affected district with 5.51 lakh people living in makeshift camps of their own arrangement. Officials said Barpeta had 5.3 lakh affected people at the last count followed by Goalpara (4.28 lakh), Morigaon (4.2 lakh) and South Salmara (2.25 lakh).

The water level at the flooded Kaziranga National Park (KNP) subsided marginally but two one-horned rhinoceroses drowned on Wednesday.

“About 90% of the park is now submerged with 153 of the 223 anti-poaching camps inundated, 14 of them vacated because of high water level,” director P. Sivakumar said.

The KNP, also a tiger reserve, has a core area of 430 sq km and a total area of 1,055 sq km.

The carcasses of the male and the female rhino were found at two spots of the park’s Central Range. The carcass of another male rhino was found on June 26, but officials said it had died of natural causes.

Rhino, tiger released in the jungle

Two more rhinos rescued from the flooded park underwent treatment at the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation at Kaziranga. One of them was released in the jungles. A rescued female tiger was also released.

The deluge, an annual phenomenon, has so far claimed the lives of 66 KNP animals — 55 of them being hog deer. Thirteen of them were killed by speeding vehicles on the highway that runs through the escape route of the animals between the flooded park and the hills of Karbi Anglong.