- Friday, February 28, 2025
Cloudbursts and flash floods have caused extensive damage in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh states
By: Shajil Kumar
EMERGENCY workers rescued nearly 1,000 people who were stranded in different parts of the Himalayas following torrential rainfall in northern India, which caused widespread damage and left at least 12 people dead, officials said on Thursday.
The capital Delhi received intense rainfall late on Wednesday, totalling 147 mm (5.8 inches) in eastern parts of the city and its suburbs, the India Meteorological Department said.
At least seven people died in Delhi, according to local media.
Three people died and parts of two bridges washed away after a cloudburst – a massive amount of rain in a brief period – in Uttarakhand state, officials said, and bad weather was hampering communications in the hilly terrain.
Rescue workers saved over 1,000 people who were stranded in different locations on the Kedarnath route – a trek to a Hindu pilgrimage site – and a patch of the national highway was washed out, district official Saurabh Gaharwar said by phone.
Uttarakhand, which is prone to flash floods and landslides, was ravaged by record rainfall in 2013, and nearly 6,000 Hindu devotees on pilgrimages went missing.
Himachal Pradesh
In neighbouring Himachal Pradesh state, two people died and nearly 50 were missing after flooding caused by rains, authorities said.
Photos the state chief minister shared showed rescue workers crossing streams by rope, as muddy water gushed through rocks between hills.
“The situation is quite bad there and we are trying to pull out people, dead bodies (if any) from the debris,” Jyoti Rana, a district official in the capital Shimla, told Reuters.
Some climate experts have attributed the extreme rainfall, flash floods and deadly landslides seen in the mountains of India, Pakistan and Nepal over the past few years to climate change.
In Delhi, water leaked from the glass dome of a newly constructed parliament building, opposition leader Akhilesh Yadav said on X. The leak was later repaired.
Delhi has experienced a series of extreme weather events in the past few months, from scorchingtemperatures to floods and rainfall that caused a roof collapse at the city’s airport.
Survivors’ agony
Residents of Rajban village in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district said on Friday that fear of death kept them awake all night as they climbed to a mountain to stay safe.
Flash floods triggered by cloudburst washed away two houses and damaged another in this village near Terang in the Padhar subdivision on Wednesday night.
“Bodies of my father-in-law and mother-in-law have been recovered but my son, my brother-in-law, his wife and their six-year-old son and two-month-old daughter are still missing,” a wailing woman told PTI.
“I live above the hill but my son was with his grandparents,” she added.
“We rushed out of our houses after hearing screams of people and found that houses nearby have been swept in landslides and flash floods,” another villager said.
“Fear of death kept us awake all night as we climbed to a mountain to stay safe,” the villager added.
According to the state emergency operation centre, the cloudbursts took place in Nirmand, Sainj and Malana areas in Kullu, Padhar in Mandi and Rampur in Shimla districts on Wednesday night.
Damaged houses, wailing relatives with fading hope narrated a tale of horror in the Sanej area of Rampur subdivision of Shimla district, where over 30 people are missing after the disaster struck.
“I heard the sound of gushing water and came out of my house only to find the area around flooded. I immediately rushed to a safe place with my family,” Nali Ram, a senior citizen who along with his family members managed to escape the flash flood, said.
A cloudburst near Shrikhand Mahadev on Wednesday night triggered flash floods in Sarpara, Ganvi and Kurban nallahs, as a result, the water in Samej Khud in Shimla district’s Rampur rose, leaving two people dead and about 30 missing, Shimla Superintendent of Police Sanjeev Kumar Gandhi said.
The swelling of Samej Khud resulted in havoc in Shimla and Kullu districts.
“My father-in-law who was working on a project has been missing since last night and I along with other relatives came here in search of him,” a person named Neel Dutt said.
Mohan Lal Kaptiya, Pradhan of Sarpara Panchayat, claimed that about 29-30 houses, primary health centre and school have been washed away in the flash floods in Samej area.
A resident of Kullu’s Malana village, Maini Devi (32), said that around 3 am, there was a huge sound from the Malana Dam site downstream and in the morning we got to know that it was breached.
Road connectivity to Malana village is cut off, triggering people to go hoarding for essential commodities, causing the village shops to go dry, Devi added.
Since the onset of monsoon on June 27, 73 people have died in rain-related incidents in Himachal Pradesh.
Helicopters deployed
The Indian Air Force on Friday deployed Chinook and MI17 helicopters for rescue operations in Uttarakhand to evacuate over 500 pilgrims stranded on the rain-ravaged trek route to Kedarnath, with 10 of them being airlifted in the first round.
The route suffered extensive damage as a result of a cloudburst in Junglechatti near Lincholi on Wednesday night.
Ten pilgrims were airlifted by MI17 helicopter on Friday morning and dropped at Gauchar airstrip, officials here said.
The yatra to Kedarnath has been put on hold for the time being, with an advisory of the district administration asking pilgrims to wait wherever they are till the route is cleared of debris and restored. (Agencies)
