A man uses a temporary raft, fashioned by the authorities of the Cachar Cancer Hospital & Research Centre, to go home after his appointment. The approach to the hospital — run by the Cachar Cancer Hospital Society — is still submerged in water, a week after the flood hit Silchar town.

A family carries a ‘suction machine’ from the hospital to treat their father, who suffered a stroke last month, at home.

While water has receded in most parts of Silchar, some localities continue to be inundated and without electricity. In one such place, Chencoorie, a school teacher carries a polythene bag of mobile phones, given to him by various neighbours, to charge in another locality with electricity.

A vegetable vendor, who is now selling wares on a make-shift raft, says the customers throw down baskets tied to ropes, and he puts the vegetables in.

The water has been stagnant for more than 10 days now, has started to smell, and change colour.

Residents, however, brave it everyday, either wading through it or using country boats, to buy daily supplies.

Residents say the water came “first slowly, then suddenly” on the afternoon of June 20, following a suspected breach at the Bethukandi embankment along the Barak river the previous day. At Bethukandi, workers from different departments are busy reinforcing the dyke, making “ring bunds” and packing it with “geo-bags”.

At Fatak Bazaar, the biggest wholesale market that functions as the commercial nerve centre of three Barak Valley districts, shopkeepers dispose of sacks of pulses and other goods that went under water.

A caretaker of a school looks on as OMR sheets and pieces of chalks, salvaged from the floodwaters, are left to dry.

As the sun shines, a brand new order of school uniforms, found floating in the brownish-grey waters, are now left on the rusted tin roof of the school to dry. EOM