India’s deputy minister for science and technology, Jitendra Singh, said the floods were triggered by a cloudburst in Jammu and Kashmir’s Chositi area and “could result in substantial casualty,” AP reported.
Susheel Kumar Sharma, a local official, said the first responders, comprising of villagers and local officials, had so far recovered bodies of seven people from a stream under mud and debris while 60 people were rescued and taken to local hospitals.
Sharma said many people were still missing as the devastating floods swept away dozens of vehicles and motorbikes.
Chositi is a remote Himalayan village in Kashmir's Kishtwar district and is the last village accessible to motor vehicles on the route of an annual Hindu pilgrimage to a mountainous shrine. Multiple pilgrims are also feared to be affected by the disaster. Officials said the pilgrimage has been suspended and more rescue teams were on the way to the area.
Lt. Gov. Manoj Sinha, New Delhi’s top administrator in Kashmir, offered condolences for the loss of life and said he had directed personnel from India’s military and paramilitary forces, as well as police and disaster management officials, to strengthen rescue and relief operations.
Sudden, intense downpours over small areas known as cloudbursts are increasingly common in India’s Himalayan regions, which are prone to flash floods and landslides. Cloudbursts have the potential to wreak havoc by causing intense flooding and landslides, impacting thousands of people in the mountainous regions.
Experts say cloudbursts have increased in recent years partly due to climate change, while damage from the storms also has increased because of unplanned development in mountain regions.