At least 37 people have been killed after a sudden cloudburst unleashed torrential rain in Indian-administered Kashmir, a disaster management official said, marking the second major disaster in the Himalayas in just over a week.
The deluge struck Chisoti, a town in Kishtwar district, on Thursday morning. The site serves as a key stop along the pilgrimage route to the Machail Mata temple, a revered Himalayan shrine dedicated to Goddess Durga.
Television footage showed terrified pilgrims crying as water surged through the settlement.
Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, described the situation as “grim” and said confirmed details were slow to emerge from the remote location.
Mohammed Irshad said rescue teams scouring the devastated Himalayan village of Chositi brought at least 100 people to safety.
“Dead bodies of 37 people have been recovered,” said Irshad, a top disaster management official, adding there was no count of any missing people available.
According to Ramesh Kumar, divisional commissioner of Kishtwar, the cloudburst hit at about 11:30am local time. He told ANI news agency that police and disaster response teams were on the ground, while army and air force units had also been mobilised. “Search and rescue operations are under way,” Kumar said.
An official, who asked not to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media, said the flood swept away a community kitchen and a security post set up to serve pilgrims. “A large number of pilgrims had gathered for lunch and they were washed away,” the official told the news agency Reuters.
The India Meteorological Department defines a cloudburst as a sudden, extreme downpour exceeding 100mm of rain in an hour, often triggering flash floods and landslides in mountainous regions during the monsoon.
Last week, a similar disaster in Uttarakhand, another Himalayan state, buried an entire village under mud and debris after heavy rains.
