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Odisha’s 2026 floods show that saving lives is only the first step in a true humanitarian response.
As waters recede, a second emergency begins for people with disabilities, single women, elderly residents and landless workers who struggle to access aid.
Recovery must restore livelihoods and dignity, ensuring the most vulnerable are not left behind when rebuilding begins.
When floodwaters rise, the priority is rightly to save lives. Boats move through submerged villages, rescue teams evacuate families, relief camps open, and food reaches people who have lost access to their homes.
But what happens when the water recedes?
For a person with disability who cannot easily reach a government office to claim compensation. For an elderly person living alone whose house has been damaged. For a single woman who has lost her livelihood while caring for children. For a landless agricultural labourer with no savings, or a fisher who has lost a boat and nets — the emergency does not end when the river returns to its banks. For them, the second emergency begins.
This is the larger humanitarian lesson from Odisha’s 2026 floods: humanitarian action must go beyond saving lives and rebuilding infrastructure. It must revive livelihoods, restore dignity, and ensure that those who are ordinarily invisible do not become invisible again during recovery.
Odisha has witnessed a major flood emergency during the 2026 southwest monsoon. By August 18, around 9.4 lakh (0.94 million) people had been affected, and more than 3.3 lakh (0.33 million) had been evacuated to safer locations and relief camps. Nearly 42,000 hectares of agricultural land were affected, with Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Mayurbhanj, Kendrapara and Keonjhar among the worst-hit districts.
The state government has mounted a significant emergency response — evacuation, relief camps, food distribution, rescue operations and restoration of essential infrastructure. But the scale of the disaster makes clear that recovery will need much more than repairing roads and embankments.
A farmer whose crop has been destroyed needs seeds and working capital. A fisher needs a boat or net. A livestock owner needs to replace lost animals. A weaver needs tools and raw materials. A daily-wage worker needs an opportunity to earn again. A family whose home has been damaged needs support to rebuild — not merely a temporary shelter.
The question, then, is not simply how many people we have rescued. It is how many families can regain their ability to live with dignity.
Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi’s announcement of a Rs 1,000-crore special relief package for six flood-affected districts is an important recognition that the response must move from immediate relief towards recovery and livelihood restoration.
The package goes beyond conventional relief. For small and marginal farmers whose crops have suffered 33 per cent or more damage, agricultural input assistance has been set at Rs 8,500 per hectare for non-irrigated land, Rs 17,000 for irrigated land and Rs 22,500 for perennial crops. Affected farmers will also receive assistance to buy paddy and non-paddy seeds through direct benefit transfer, along with vegetable mini-kits and a 75 per cent subsidy for post-flood pest and disease management.
The package also recognises that rural livelihoods are interconnected. It provides for livestock losses and for restoring damaged boats, fishing nets and ponds; converts short-term Kharif crop loans into medium-term loans for willing farmers; and supports artisans and weavers with damaged tools, equipment and raw materials.
Roads and other infrastructure will get immediate, temporary repairs, with permanent reconstruction to follow a detailed damage assessment. Food relief — cooked food, dry rations and relief rice — will continue until normalcy returns, alongside financial assistance for clothing, utensils and household articles. The government has indicated the package can be enlarged if the final damage assessment warrants it.
This matters. Recovery is not merely reconstruction of what the flood destroyed. It is restoration of people’s capacity to live, work and rebuild.
The effectiveness of any relief package ultimately depends on whether it reaches those who need it most. Disasters are physically indiscriminate, but their consequences are profoundly unequal.
A family with land, savings, documents, social networks and physical mobility may recover relatively quickly. A woman-headed household, a person with disability, an elderly person living alone, a landless labourer or a socially excluded family may struggle even to access the mechanisms through which recovery assistance is delivered.
A Joint Rapid Need Assessment in Bhadrak and Balasore has highlighted precisely these inequalities. Marginal and tenant farmers, landless agricultural workers, fisherfolk, women-headed households, persons with disabilities, pregnant and lactating women, children and older people living alone have suffered disproportionate losses of food stocks, livestock, household belongings, crops and fishing equipment.
For these families, an entitlement that exists on paper is not necessarily one that can be accessed in reality. This is where humanitarian organisations and civil society have an indispensable role.
This principle is at the heart of ActionAid’s humanitarian work in Odisha. The organisation has worked in the state for decades, including through major cyclones and floods, and its approach recognises that disaster impacts are differential — humanitarian assistance must prioritise those facing the greatest vulnerability and exclusion.
With support from Odisha Viklang Manch and ActionAid Association, relief packets containing chuda, gur, biscuits and milk have been distributed to flood-affected households in Bhandaripokhari block of Bhadrak — simple items, but critical in the immediate aftermath. Donatekart Foundation has delivered 1,000 shelter and hygiene kits for affected communities, and ActionAid’s intervention is now expanding to Dhamnagar and Bhandaripokhari in Bhadrak, and Soro and Bahanaga in Balasore, reaching almost 2,500 vulnerable mostly persons with disability, single women and old aged households.
This is not simply about distributing relief material. It is about reaching families who risk being missed altogether.
The most vulnerable should not be an afterthought in recovery planning. A person with disability may need an accessible shelter, mobility assistance and support in accessing compensation. An older person living alone may need someone to help navigate the recovery process. Single women may need livelihood assistance alongside housing support. Women-headed households may need sanitation, menstrual hygiene and protection measures, as well as financial support.
Informal workers, too, cannot be treated merely as flood victims — they are workers whose productive assets and earning opportunities have been disrupted. A street vendor may have lost a cart, a fisher a net, a livestock-dependent household its animals, a small farmer an entire season’s crop.
Livelihood recovery must therefore be treated as a humanitarian priority — not as something that begins only after the emergency phase ends.
ActionAid’s role is particularly important in this transition. Its local partners who have been part of the humanitarian school of first responders stay in regular contact with affected communities and government officials, supporting relief distribution, identifying vulnerable households, and helping families access government compensation and entitlements.
This is the bridge between relief and rights. The government has announced significant compensation and livelihood measures; civil society can help ensure these reach the people they are intended for — particularly those who lack mobility, information, documentation, social networks or the confidence to navigate official systems.
The objective should not be to create dependency on humanitarian agencies. It should be to help affected communities recover their agency.
As Odisha rebuilds roads, embankments, houses, irrigation systems and public infrastructure, a deeper question needs asking: are we rebuilding what was lost, or building a more resilient and equitable Odisha?
A resilient recovery should mean houses that are safer, infrastructure that is accessible, livelihoods that are more climate-resilient, and disaster preparedness that puts communities at the centre. It should mean women participating in disaster planning, persons with disabilities included in preparedness and evacuation plans, older people mapped and supported, and local volunteers equipped to respond before outside help arrives.
Odisha has already shown the value of community-led disaster risk reduction, including women and youth cadres involved in preparedness, evacuation, relief-centre management, needs assessment and rehabilitation. This local capacity must be strengthened, not sidelined.
Recently, World Humanitarian Day was observed globally. It is an occasion to recognise those who work in crises — but also to reflect on what humanitarianism means. In Odisha, it means the response must continue after the cameras leave and the floodwaters recede: that the elderly woman living alone is not forgotten; that a person with disability can access compensation without impossible barriers; that a single woman can rebuild her house and her livelihood; that a fisher can return to work, a small farmer can plant again, and an informal worker can earn again; that a family can replace not only its roof, but the utensils, tools, livestock and productive assets that make a home a livelihood.
The Rs 1,000-crore government package provides an important foundation for this recovery. Civil society and humanitarian organisations carry an equally important responsibility: to ensure its benefits reach the people who need them most.
Saving lives is the beginning of humanitarian action. Rebuilding infrastructure is necessary. But reviving livelihoods, restoring dignity and enabling the most vulnerable to reclaim their future is what makes recovery truly humanitarian.
Odisha’s floods remind us of a simple principle: we must not merely rebuild after disasters. We must rebuild with the people who are most likely to be left behind — and stand with them until they can stand on their own again.
Debabrat Patra is Associate Director and Humanitarian Lead, ActionAid Association
Views expressed are the author's own and don't necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.
