At least 37 people have died and more than 200 are missing after a sudden rainstorm in Indian Kashmir, the second such disaster in the Himalayas in a little over a week.
The incident in the town of Chashoti, Kishtwar district, occurred at a stopover point on a pilgrimage route. Days earlier, a flood and mudslide engulfed a village in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.
The flood washed away a community kitchen and a security post in the village, a pit stop along the pilgrimage route to the Machail Mata temple, according to an official. “A large number of pilgrims had gathered for lunch and they were washed away,” they said.
The Machail Yatra trail is a popular route up to the high-altitude Himalayan shrine of Machail Mata, which honours the Hindu goddess Durga, and pilgrims trek to the temple from Chashoti, where the road for vehicles ends.
“The news is grim and accurate, verified information from the area hit by the cloudburst is slow in arriving,” said Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of India’s federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, in a post on X.
Television footage showed pilgrims crying as water flooded the village.
The disaster occurred at 11.30am local time, Ramesh Kumar, the divisional commissioner of Kishtwar district, told ANI news agency, adding that local police and disaster response officials had reached the scene.
“Army air force teams have also been activated. Search and rescue operations are under way,” Kumar said.
A cloudburst, according to the Indian Meteorological Department, is a sudden, intense downpour of more than 100mm (4in) of rain in just one hour that can trigger sudden floods, landslides and devastation, especially in mountainous regions during the monsoon.
The local weather office in Srinagar predicted intense showers for several regions in Kashmir on Thursday, including Kishtwar. It urged residents to stay away from loose structures, electric poles and old trees as there was a possibility of mudslides and flash floods.
