A tropical depression moved in from the Bay of Bengal during the first week of October 2004, pounding Bangladesh and Northeastern India with heavy rain for several days. Starting on October 9, flash floods ran through the foothills of the Himalaya, killing over 150, according to the most recent media reports. The majority of the deaths occurred in the Goalpara Region of the Assam state in northeastern India, shown in the above images. The twisted braids of the Brahmaputra River, the top river, were greatly swollen on October 12 when compared to the river’s size on October 2. More astonishing is the flooding observed along the Jamuna River, a tributary of the Brahmaputra. The river has expanded from a thin line, barely visible on October 2 to a massive lake that is more than 125 kilometers in width in places. In both images, acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), water is dark blue and black, clouds are light blue, and vegetation is green.
The large images provided above are at MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel. Both the October 12 and October 2 images are available in additional resolutions and formats, including a true-color view.
NASA images courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
