Dozens of people were missing after a fast-moving surge of water and mud smashed into a town in India’s Himalayan region on Tuesday, tearing down a mountain valley and demolishing buildings, killing at least four.
Videos broadcast on Indian media showed a terrifying river of muddy water engulf the town of Dharali in Uttarakhand state on Tuesday afternoon, sweeping away entire homes and apartment blocks. In footage recorded at the scene, people could been seen screaming in fear as they tried to escape the surging flood waters.
Dozens in the village had been gathered in a temple for a festival as the wave of dark water and debris struck at high velocity.
The Indian defence minister, Sanjay Seth, confirmed that four people had been killed in the disaster but officials feared the number could rise. About 60 were still reported missing and feared trapped in the mud, including around eight soldiers who were reported missing from a camp in the area.
The Uttarakhand state chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said rescue teams had been deployed “on a war footing”.
Dhami said the flood was caused by a sudden and intense “cloudburst”, calling the destruction “extremely sad and distressing”. The India Meteorological Department said it had recorded “extremely heavy” rainfall of about 21cm (8in) in some parts of Uttarakhand.
Overnight rescue efforts were hampered as heavy rain continued to fall and access remained challenging, as several key roads had washed away. Rivers across Uttarakhand were flowing above the danger mark on Wednesday, sparking concerns of further landslides and disasters in the area. The central water commission said that four rivers at five sites remained in a “severe flood situation”.
India’s army said 150 troops had reached the town, helping to rescue about 20 people who had survived the wall of freezing sludge. “A massive mudslide struck Dharali … triggering a sudden flow of debris and water through the settlement,” the army said.
Images released by the army, taken from the site after the main torrent showed swathes of the town swamped mud and deep debris, and a slow moving muddy river still flowing through the town.
“Search and rescue efforts are ongoing, with all available resources being deployed to locate and evacuate any remaining stranded persons,” an army spokesperson, Suneel Bartwal, said.
The prime minister, Narendra Modi, expressed his condolences, and said that “no stone is being left unturned in providing assistance”.
Deadly floods and landslides are common during the monsoon season from June to September, but experts say the climate crisis, coupled with urbanisation, is increasing their frequency and severity.
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization said in 2024 that more intense floods and droughts are a “distress signal” for what is to come as climate breakdown makes the planet’s water cycle ever more unpredictable.
Uttarakhand, which has mountainous and often unstable terrain, has faced several major monsoon-related disasters in its recent history. In 2013, flash floods in Kedarnath killed 4,127 people and in 2021, a glacier burst triggered an avalanche in Chamoli, killing over 200.
Harjeet Singh, a climate activist and founding director of Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, said the tragedy was caused by a “deadly cocktail”.
“Global warming is super-charging our monsoons with extreme rain, while on the ground, our own policies of cutting hills, unscientific, unsustainable, and reckless construction, and choking rivers for so-called ‘development’ are destroying our natural defences,” he said. ““Are we not engineering our own disasters?”
Source: theguardian.com
