Two Churches Washed Away as Flash Floods Cripple Border Town in Arunachal Pradesh

Nothing could be salvaged from the prayer house except some important documents and a printer belonging to the Pastoral Range, NBCC said, listing the church kitchen and its property, three prayer house staff quarters, the chapel hall, the common dining hall, and the bathrooms and toilets as totally washed away. Parsi Parlo Church itself sustained heavy damage. The flood also struck the Chote Pagam Baptist Church under the same Pastoral Range, damaging its building and boundary wall. The devastation was not confined to the Baptist community. St. Thomas Church, a Catholic church belonging to the newly established Parciparlo Parish, was also completely swept away, in a flood that the Diocese of Itanagar placed at around 2 a.m., an hour after NBishop Benny Varghese of the Diocese of Itanagar said parish priests rescued the Blessed Sacrament and moved it to higher ground before the church collapsed. “This morning around 2:00 a.m., the water level of the Parciparlo River rose suddenly. As a result, St. Thomas Church has been washed away,” the bishop said in a message shared with the faithful. Speaking after a conversation with parish priest Fr. Naveen Kumar, he added that the school was fully submerged and that the presbytery and convent were badly affected, with water levels still rising. Established in 2019, the parish, referred to in different reports as Parciparlo Parish and Parsi Parlo Parish, serves more than 1,200 Catholics across 14 substations.

BCC’s recorded time for the flood striking the town.