By - Imlisanen Jamir
Dimapur is underwater again. Three people electrocuted. Hundreds of people rescued. Entire colonies waist-deep in brown water. Flights cancelled. Roads submerged. These are the headlines — and they repeat like clockwork.
On July 6, Nagaland recorded 393% above-normal rainfall — Dimapur’s daily total was 31.5 mm, nearly triple its average of 12.2 mm, while Kohima clocked an eye-watering 423% above normal. It wasn’t a surprise. The IMD forecasted it. NSDMA warned about it. And still, the most reliable monsoon response was evacuation boats.
In 2023, three people died in floods. In 2018, the state asked the Centre for Rs 800 crore in relief and reconstruction after similar floods and landslides. The numbers have always been there. What’s missing is political arithmetic — the will to subtract the avoidable from the inevitable.
From 2019 to 2021, Nagaland experienced deficient monsoons three years in a row — rainfall dropped by 13% (2019), 26% (2020), and 27% (2021) according to the India Meteorological Department. Yet, even during those drier years, Dimapur flooded. Because the problem was never the sky — it was the ground. Choked drains. Encroached wetlands. Informal settlements in low-lying basins.
When the rains returned in 2022, they didn’t come gently. IMD recorded +17% excess rainfall in July 2022, triggering landslides across Kohima and flash floods in Niuland and Peren districts. In August that year, a major road in New Peren was wiped out by a rain-induced landslide. The repair bill was paid. The lesson wasn’t.
Look at the map. Netaji Colony, Kuda Village, Purana Bazaar B, Walford, Namgalong, SM Colony — these are not new names. These are recurring datelines. In 2018. In 2023. And now, in 2025. These are also the neighbourhoods where informal housing meets unmanaged runoff, where floodwater doesn’t knock, it rushes in through the back door.
And the response? Every year, we tally damage reports. We open camps and issue warnings. NSDMA deserves credit — their July 2025 alerts likely saved lives. But even they know warnings are not levees.
In 2020, the state government noted that “all low-lying areas of Nagaland bordering Assam are at risk of floods,” and requested national support to build drainage and embankments. That year, Dimapur received only ₹1.35 crore under the State Disaster Response Fund — barely enough to cover the cost of relief camps.
Contrast that with the losses: in 2018, over 13.19% of the state’s population was directly affected by floods and landslides, according to the Chief Minister’s Office.
The rainfall intensity will increase. That’s the climate trend. But flood fatalities from electrocution in concrete homes aren’t natural disasters. They’re administrative ones. When entire localities flood annually, the word we’re looking for is “planned neglect.”
If we had a flood mitigation plan for Dimapur, it would be published. If we had a master drainage project, it would be debated. Instead, we have damage reports and silence.
Until we change the math — not the forecasts, but the budgeting, zoning, and response design — we’ll be counting bodies, not just rainfall.
And we already know how those numbers end.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
