Nalbari: 350 students rescued as school goes under water

GUWAHATI: Students stranded at a school in flood-hit Nalbari were rescued by State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) personnel on Monday.


The Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya is located at Banekuchi, 10 km from the Nalbari district headquarters. The school is close to the Burhadia river, which is in spate.

To compound the crisis, flood waters from Bhutan have been flowing down the foothills to the Assam side.

"Flood waters started entering the school campus on Sunday. At the time, 406 students were putting up there," Bharat Bhushan Dev Choudhury, deputy commissioner of Nalbari, told TOI. "It rained all through the night and the situation got worse this morning. Around 6.30am, we started moving students out," school principal Ghanshyam Meena said.

State Disaster Response Force personnel stepped in and, aided by school authorities, managed to evacuate more than 350 students.

"We could not have sheltered all of them through the flood season. It may get worse. Hygiene is an issue. There are not enough toilets. The rain is expected to continue, which means things won't improve any time soon. Considering all this, it seemed wiser to send students home," Choudhury, who is also chairperson of the school management, said. "But 40 students remain stranded, confined to the first floor of the building," Choudhury added.

It's not just the student dormitories. Flood waters have inundated the school principal's residence as well. Only the staff residential block has been untouched by floods so far.

Meena said the problem is a recurring one. "At least for the past two-three years, I have encountered the same situation. Don't know if anything can be done," he added.

The Nalbari district administration and disaster response agencies are monitoring the situation. Because of summer vacation in government-run schools of the state, they have some time at hand. "We will try and ensure regular classes as soon as possible," Choudhury said.

Nalbari has seen the floods go from bad to worse over the past couple of days. As of Monday, 1,64,645 people have been affected across the district.