India’s mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh has been left reeling after it was hit by rainstorms, flash floods and landslides, with dozens of people reported missing.
Hundreds of homes, bridges, roads and electricity pylons in the north Indian state were washed away after 23 flash floods and 16 landslides caused by unusually heavy rainfall over the weekend. There were also 19 cloudbursts, in which an enormous amount of rain falls in a sudden deluge, according to a report by the Himachal Pradesh state government.
Several districts remained on high alert for further landslides, with warnings of more rainfall this week.
Himachal Pradesh, a state that spans the mountainous terrain of the Himalayas, has suffered repeatedly in recent years as the climate emergency has led to the monsoon rains becoming erratic and falling in more intense, unmanageable bursts.
In 2023, large swathes of essential infrastructure in Himachal Pradesh was destroyed and more than 300 people lost their lives after destructive flooding across north India.
Many of the state’s biggest towns and cities are built on steep slopes, resulting in hundreds of homes – often built on insecure terrain – collapsing or being engulfed in mud due to landslides and flooding.
The state disaster management authority said the death toll from monsoon-related disasters had reached 78 so far this year, which included deaths from flash floods, electrocution and road accidents.
Rescue efforts were ongoing on Monday to find dozens of people still missing after the landslides, but officials said efforts had been hampered by the region’s treacherous terrain and the destruction of vital roads. Many areas across the state were left isolated, without access to clean water and power.
One of the state’s worst-affected urban areas was the town of Mandi. The town’s MP, the Bollywood star turned politician Kangana Ranaut – known for her often provocative statements – caused outrage after she said she did “not have any funds for disaster relief or hold any cabinet post”.
Experts have repeatedly said the climate crisis is intensifying the risk of flooding in India to dangerous levels due to increased rainfall, rising sea levels and more extreme weather events, particularly during the monsoon period between June and September, when about 80% of the country’s rain falls.
Serious flooding in June had already led to dozens of deaths in the north-eastern Indian states of Assam and Mizoram where the monsoon rains arrive earlier. The early arrival of heavy monsoon rains in Mumbai left large areas of the city under water, bringing the metropolitan area, home to about 24 million people, to a standstill.
