A woman has died following a landslide in the city of Guwahati in Assam State, India. Rini Deka Das, 35, was killed when the landslide hit her home in the Rupnagar district of the city at about 11.30 am local time on Monday 17 September 2025. The victim's husband and son are reported to have escaped from the house, but at the time of the incident she was in the bathroom, which appears to have been the part of the building directly hit by a large rock carried by the landslide. Because the house was located on a hillslope about 150-200 m above the main road, it was impossible to bring heavy machinery up to help with clearing the site, forcing rescuers to clear it by hand, as a result her body was not found until about 10.00 pm on the day of the incident, buried under more than a meter of debris.
The incident is thought to have been triggered by heavy rains associated with the annual Monsoon Season. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall. The Monsoon Season typically lasts from May to October each year in Assam, and frequently brings with it flooding and related events. This is a particular problem in rapidly growing cities such as Guwahati, where poorly applied planning regulations have led to housing expanding onto unstable hillslopes (often destabilised further by the removal of trees) and other high risk areas such as floodplains.
Monsoons are tropical sea breezes triggered by heating of the land during the warmer part of the year (summer). Both the land and sea are warmed by the Sun, but the land has a lower ability to absorb heat, radiating it back so that the air above landmasses becomes significantly warmer than that over the sea, causing the air above the land to rise and drawing in water from over the sea; since this has also been warmed it carries a high evaporated water content, and brings with it heavy rainfall. In the tropical dry season the situation is reversed, as the air over the land cools more rapidly with the seasons, leading to warmer air over the sea, and thus breezes moving from the shore to the sea (where air is rising more rapidly) and a drying of the climate. This situation is particularly intense in South Asia, due to the presence of the Himalayas. High mountain ranges tend to force winds hitting them upwards, which amplifies the South Asian Summer Monsoon, with higher winds leading to more upward air movement, thus drawing in further air from the sea.
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