India’s southwest monsoon has turned lethal this year, with flooding and landslides killing more than 130 people since July, according to state disaster authorities. The season has been marked by an unusual pattern: an overall rainfall deficit of roughly 16 percent nationally, punctuated by short, extremely intense downpours that have overwhelmed rivers, hillsides and drainage systems in specific pockets of the country.
Assam has borne the brunt of the disaster, with at least 87 deaths reported in the state. Sivasagar district alone has accounted for 47 of those fatalities, as flash floods swept through low-lying settlements with little warning. The Brahmaputra and its tributaries have breached embankments in several districts, displacing tens of thousands of families and submerging farmland ahead of the harvest season.
The Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir has also been hit hard, with state television reporting at least 31 deaths linked to landslides and flash flooding in the union territory. In Kerala, continuous heavy rain has left at least 15 people dead and seven others missing, with more than 10,000 residents currently sheltering across over 300 relief camps set up by the state government.
Meteorologists say the season illustrates how a weak or erratic monsoon does not necessarily mean a safe one. Scientists have pointed to El Nino conditions, shifting western disturbances and the broader effects of global warming as factors making India’s monsoon harder to predict, with rainfall increasingly arriving in short, violent bursts rather than the sustained, predictable spells of earlier decades. Assam, for instance, is facing severe flooding this year despite a rainfall deficit of nearly 30 percent, underscoring how a handful of extreme-rainfall days can outweigh weeks of dry weather.
The impact has not been confined to India. Neighbouring Sri Lanka has also reported flooding this monsoon season, with at least eight deaths and roughly 12,000 people displaced. Relief operations remain underway across the affected Indian states, with more than 74,000 people currently housed in government relief camps as authorities work to restore road access, power and clean water to isolated communities.