By Vanessa Ko, Harmeet Singh and Sara Sidner
(CNN) — Flooding described by India’s prime minister as the worst in recent times, has left at least 95 people dead and almost 2 million others homeless in the country’s remote Assam state.
The Brahmaputra river overflowed during monsoon rains over the past week, flooding more than 2,000 villages and destroying homes in the northeast of the country, officials said.
Most of the dead were swept away by the fast-flowing water, while 16 were reported to have been buried by landslides caused by the heavy rains.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told journalists Monday that almost half a million people were living in relief camps, and the remaining of the displaced were staying with relatives or living in the open, using tarpaulin sheets for shelter.
Sabir Ali, who lives in one of the affected villages, had to move his family to higher ground with only what they could carry.
“I am stuck. How will I survive? I’ve been forced to move to railways tracks with my children,” he told CNN-IBN.
But water levels have begun to recede, and thousands have returned to damaged homes. A report issued on Tuesday lowered the number of evacuees to 370,000.
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