Itanagar: Floods have slammed Arunachal Pradesh, forcing Rajya Sabha MP Tai Tagak to plead for a special federal relief package. The disaster touched over one lakh families across 28 districts. It destroyed 85,000 hectares of crops. Infrastructure damage is everywhere.
Tagak addressed the media on Monday, July 14. He painted a grim picture. He stated the scale of the destruction was "worse than the 1950 earthquake" and hit harder than the state government can handle alone. Incessant rain and cloudbursts triggered the chaos. Rivers overflowed. Towns and villages fall victim every day.
Roads and bridges lie in ruin. Debris blocks relief teams from reaching remote areas. Communication is dead in places like Nilling Circle in Upper Subansiri and Parsi Parlo in Kurung Kumey. Officials worry that waterlogging will trigger disease outbreaks. They told the health department to stay on high alert.
Key infrastructure in Anjaw, Tawang, and Lower Siang districts remains shattered. The Ministry of Defence and the Border Roads Organisation are currently scouting damage to strategic roads. Rapid repairs are vital for border security. An inter-ministerial team surveyed the damage but failed to reach far-flung villages due to the destroyed roads.
District officials, bureaucrats, and the State Disaster Response Force are leading rescue efforts in Lower Dibang Valley, Keyi Panyor, and East Siang. Floods also decimated livestock, fisheries, and local markets. Tagak contributed 19 lakh rupees from his own pocket to aid Keyi Panyor and Lower Siang. He urged the Union government to act now to save an agriculture-dependent state that lacks the revenue to recover on its own.
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