No home to return to: Assam’s flood victims face harder fight after waters recede

GUWAHATI: The water had receded. The families could return home. But there was no home to return to.In Assam’s Sivasagar, a family that had spent years saving money and storing grain was left with little more than a mud-covered house after the floods.20 quintals of grain were destroyed. Their refrigerator and other household belongings were damaged or washed away. For several days, they stayed with someone else before moving into a rented room.“I came back today after the water receded to clean up, but everything is destroyed, absolutely everything is gone,” a resident said.The account captures a phase of Assam’s flood crisis that is harder to measure than the rising death toll or the number of people rescued: what remains when the water leaves.For families who have lost homes, food stocks, furniture and farming resources, receding floodwaters do not mean a return to normal life.They mark the beginning of another…