Villagers gather at the edge of an embankment washed away in flash floods at Puthimari, 45km from Guwahati, on Monday. (PTI)

Guwahati, Sept. 1: Two rhino calves drowned at Kaziranga National Park while several elephant calves were swept away by flood waters in Majuli as a deteriorating situation forced chief minister Tarun Gogoi to undertake an unscheduled inspection of flood-hit Kamalpur in Kamrup district.

The state water resources department said 10.27 lakh people were affected by the deluge, submerging over 2 lakh hectares of standing crops. Altogether 132 relief camps have been opened in various parts of the state where 20,350 people were being accommodated.

National Highway 31, linking the Northeast to the rest of the country, has been cut off at Srirampur on the Assam-West Bengal border and at Kamalpur in Kamrup district.

The chief minister reviewed the situation with water resources minister Bharat Narah and other senior officials at his residence after returning from Kamalpur.

Yesterday, a major embankment on the Puthimari was breached, inundating several villages and also the national highway, which connects Lower Assam with Upper Assam.

The army has been called out to rescue marooned people. The latest bout of floods — the biggest this year — has submerged almost 50 per cent of Kaziranga National Park.

The park officials said carcasses of two rhino calves were recovered from the Burapahar and Kohora ranges this morning.

Sources in the forest department said an elephant herd was swept away by the gushing waters in Majuli. The herd was last seen in a chapori (sand island) along the island’s border with Lakhimpur district.

“There were at least 20 calves in the over 100-member group of elephants but only 10 calves could be spotted later,” a forest official said. He said he was not sure if the calves had drowned. “We are hopeful they will be found somewhere downstream.”

Floodwaters have submerged more than 90 per cent of the island and the SDO’s office is under knee-deep water. Even the electric supply has been erratic for the past few days.

According to a bulletin of the Central Water Commission, the tributaries of the Brahmaputra and Barak are flowing above the danger level at 12 places. In Dibrugarh, the Brahmaputra is flowing above the danger level by 1.46 metres, in Tezpur, by 0.17 metres and in Dhubri, by 0.85 metres.

A Neepco statement brought some relief saying it would not release water from its Umrangshu dam over the Kapili in the North Cachar Hills.