Guwahati: Twenty-four bikers from Sivasagar, Assam, stared down disaster in Nagaland. They arrived in Mon district on July 18 for a monsoon ride heading toward Dan, a remote town near the Myanmar border. Heavy rain began the next morning as they rode from Noklak. The weather turned brutal fast.
Water gushed down the hills and blocked the path. The riders eventually hit a wall of debris and had to turn around. Landslides had dumped entire mountainsides onto the highway. The group worked to clear the road manually just to escape. One biker noted, "There were landslides everywhere. In many places, entire mountains had come down onto the roads. We somehow had to return home."
Teammate Moushaq saved the group. He dragged 14 motorcycles across submerged sections of road by hand. Without his help, the team would have been trapped. They faced further shock at the Tuli River. Within 48 hours, the water had surged across 500 metres of land, sweeping away all trees and bamboo.
The bikers watched the surge firsthand. They believe this massive runoff poured into the river systems of Upper Assam. It turned into a disaster that claimed the region just two days later.
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