Flooding is an annual disaster in India’s Assam state.
Every year the rainy season brings endless downpours which cause the rivers to overflow, flooding towns and villages and driving residents from their homes.
This year, the rains might be even worse than usual.
Villagers are evacuating—some using boats. Their huts, built of hay bales with tin roofs, cannot hold out the water.
Some 15 relief camps have been set up to collect some of the 4,000 refugees where supplies can be distributed.
Further west, Gujarat state has received a quarter of its average annual rainfall before the July/August monsoon season has begun.
These parts of India are used to the annual flooding, which nourished the land for the agriculture which the region produces.
India’s $2 trillion economy is largely based on agriculture, and two-thirds of the nation’s 1.3 billion population make their livings farming.