Floods devastate India's breadbasket of Punjab

The fields are full but the paddy brown and wilted, and the air thick with the stench of rotting crops and livestock — the aftermath of record monsoon rains that have devastated India’s breadbasket.

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In Punjab, often dubbed the country's granary, the damage is unprecedented: floods have swallowed farmlands almost the size of London and New York City combined. India’s agriculture minister said in a recent visit to the state that “the crops have been destroyed and ruined”, and Punjab’s chief minister called the deluge “one of the worst flood disasters in decades”. Old-timers agree.

“The last time we saw such an all-consuming flood was in 1988,” said 70-year-old Balkar Singh in the village of Shehzada, 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of the holy Sikh city of Amritsar.

The gushing waters have reduced Singh’s paddy field to marshland and opened ominous cracks in the walls of his house. Floods and landslides are common during the June-September monsoon season on the subcontinent, but experts say climate change, coupled with poorly planned development, is increasing their frequency, severity and impact.