Floods in India's northeast kill nearly 100

Floods in India's northeast have killed nearly 100 people, according to an official toll update on Friday, with villages buried in mud after one of Assam state's worst deluges in years.

How many people have died in the Assam floods?

At least 97 people have died in the Assam floods, which have affected nearly 170,000 people across the state.

Thousands have been forced into temporary shelters as swollen rivers inundate homes and farmland.

What is the scale of the damage?

Floodwaters have submerged more than 14,000 hectares of cropland, an area almost one and a half times the size of Paris. An AFP journalist saw half-submerged houses, uprooted trees and vehicles buried under mud across Sivasagar, the worst-hit district.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma posted a video on Friday showing him consoling the parents of a 13-year-old boy who died while trying to rescue his pet dog from floodwaters. "No parent should ever have to bid farewell to their child," he wrote.

India's Health Minister J.P. Nadda, who visited the flood-hit region on Thursday, said the scale of the devastation was "so huge that it will take time" for normality to be restored. "Village after village has been submerged," he told reporters.

Why does Assam flood every year?

Like most of the subcontinent, flooding is common in Assam during the June-September monsoon, as the Brahmaputra, India's biggest river, and its many tributaries overflow.

Experts say climate change, combined with poorly planned development, is increasing the frequency, severity and impact of these disasters.

What is making the flooding worse this year?

Residents and officials have blamed illegal coal mining in the neighboring state of Nagaland for worsening the flooding, saying it has affected areas not historically prone to inundation. Sarma has said he would raise the issue with the national government in New Delhi.

Advocacy group Climate Trends said the increasing severity of floods in the state was driven by the interaction of global warming, changing river dynamics and growing human exposure, making the disasters more frequent, complex and costly.