How a 97-year-old escaped deadly Indian floods on a banana raft

Image source, AFP via Getty ImagesImage caption, A woman wades through floodwaters outside her inundated house at a village in Assam's Sivasagar Well past midnight on 19 July, as floodwaters surged through a village in India's northeastern state of Assam, Bornali Baruah and her husband were trying to save his 97-year-old mother.Almost bedridden, Lokada Duarah could not walk. There was no boat, no rescue team and no neighbour available to help. So they lifted her onto a makeshift raft made of banana trunks, and carried her through the rushing water towards safety."Everyone was trying to save themselves," Baruah says.An hour later, she says, the three of them reached a shelter camp on a national highway some distance away from their house in Charing village in Sivasagar district, one of the worst flood-affected districts.The water was three to four feet deep and the current so strong that they had to move slowly, holding each other's hands and using sticks to steady themselves.By then, Baruah's home was disappearing beneath the flood. The water would eventually rise to about five feet inside it.Image caption, Baruah quit journalism to concentrate on animal husbandryThe scene in Chari...