An inter-ministerial central team is due in Assam on Saturday to assess the scale of flood damage that has killed 47 people and left eight others missing, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Friday, after Union Home Minister Amit Shah phoned him this week to pledge the Centre’s support.

Briefing reporters after a review meeting with senior officials, Sarma described the flooding as an unprecedented disaster, driven by extraordinarily heavy rainfall over Nagaland’s Wokha, Mon and Mokokchung districts that sent water surging downstream into Upper Assam even as a swollen Brahmaputra blocked normal drainage. Charaideo and Sivasagar districts have borne the brunt: the Chief Minister put the toll at 10 dead in Charaideo and 21 in Sivasagar, within the statewide count of 47.

Sarma acknowledged relief teams have yet to reach every pocket of the disaster zone — by his account, roughly 30 percent of Nazira and about a fifth of Sivasagar constituency remained cut off by floodwater as of Friday — even as supplies moved out from Guwahati, Dibrugarh and Tinsukia, and country boats were brought in from neighbouring districts to reach marooned villages. Officials are also exploring ways to carry out airdrops without damaging the relief material inside, he said.

Beyond Saturday’s central assessment visit, Sarma said ministers overseeing agriculture, animal husbandry, health and education would tour the affected districts in the coming days to gauge losses and begin shaping a rehabilitation plan. He separately cautioned residents of Golaghat and Sarupathar to stay alert as water is released from the NEEPCO Doyang project over the next two days, and said he intended to revisit Charaideo and Sivasagar himself to monitor the situation.

The Centre’s involvement follows an escalation in the toll and scale of displacement over the past week. Earlier in the week, Sarma had put the number of people affected statewide at more than nine lakh across upwards of 1,800 villages in 25 districts, with the Indian Air Force, NDRF, SDRF and district administrations running round-the-clock air and boat evacuations out of more than 148 relief camps.