Assam’s flood emergency deepened through Thursday as district officials in the worst-hit stretch of upper Assam put the season’s death toll at 43 and said more than 80 people remained missing by evening — a sharply higher count than the Assam State Disaster Management Authority’s (ASDMA) own morning bulletin, which had recorded 41 deaths. Officials tied the surge to a cloudburst days earlier in Nagaland’s Mon district, which they said sent river levels in upper Assam surging as much as 435 percent above normal and pushed the flood’s footprint out to 16 districts and more than 9.5 lakh people by evening estimates.

The morning ASDMA figures, carried by PTI, had already marked Wednesday as the deadliest single day of this year’s flood season, with 10 deaths recorded in the 24 hours to Thursday morning — three each in Sivasagar and Jorhat districts, two in Charaideo, and one each in Dhemaji and Karbi Anglong — taking the cumulative toll for the year to 41, with six people still listed as missing at that point. Sivasagar was named the worst-affected district in ASDMA’s count, with close to 4 lakh people hit, followed by Charaideo and Jorhat.

By evening, district administration officials cited a markedly higher toll, telling reporters that 43 people had died over the preceding 72 hours and that more than 80 remained unaccounted for, most of them in Sivasagar and Charaideo. Officials said floodwater had risen to as much as 10 feet in parts of Nazira sub-division, where National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force teams had reportedly not yet been able to reach some stranded families. Around 1,865 villages and more than 25,000 hectares of farmland were reported affected by evening, alongside heavy livestock losses.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma visited flood-hit districts for a second consecutive day on Thursday, touring relief camps in Charaideo, Sivasagar, Jorhat and Golaghat and telling displaced families the state would support them through relief, rehabilitation and the replacement of documents lost to the floods. Sarma said Union Home Minister Amit Shah had called him to discuss the situation and that the Centre had dispatched an inter-ministerial team to assess the damage.

The disaster has also disrupted transport: swollen river levels, including the Dikhow at Sivasagar, submerged parts of the Simaluguri railway station on Northeast Frontier Railway’s Tinsukia division, forcing suspension of services on two sections while crews worked to restore track. More than 200 roads were reported damaged across four upper Assam districts, and earlier Thursday figures had counted more than 400 houses destroyed and close to 1,850 more damaged — tallies officials indicated were still climbing through the day.

The India Meteorological Department has kept Assam under an Orange Alert, with a Yellow Alert extended for four more days warning of further heavy rain, thunderstorms and lightning — meaning a relief operation already stretched across hundreds of camps sheltering tens of thousands of displaced people faces little prospect of respite in the immediate term.