Flash floods in India and Pakistan kill over 280 people, scores remain missing

Flash floods triggered by torrential rains killed over 280 people across India and Pakistan in the past 24 hours, with rescuers searching for at least 80 missing in a remote Himalayan village where cloudbursts devastated a Hindu pilgrimage site.

A relief helicopter carrying supplies to flood-hit areas in Pakistan's northwest crashed Friday due to bad weather, killing all five people aboard including two pilots.

In India-controlled Kashmir, at least 60 people died and 80 remained missing after flash floods struck the remote village of Chositi, where more than 200 Hindu pilgrims were eating at a community kitchen when floodwaters swept down the mountain.

At least 50 seriously injured people were treated in local hospitals, many of them rescued from a stream filled with mud and debris. Disaster management official Mohammed Irshad said the number of missing people could increase.

Chositi, in Kashmir’s Kishtwar district, is the last village accessible to motor vehicles on the route of an ongoing annual Hindu pilgrimage to a mountainous shrine at an altitude of 3,000 metres.

Officials said the pilgrimage, which began 25 July and was scheduled to end on 5 September, was suspended.

Photos and videos on social media show extensive damage with household goods strewn next to damaged vehicles and homes in the village.

Authorities made makeshift bridges Friday to help stranded pilgrims cross a muddy water channel and used dozens of earthmovers to shift boulders, uprooted trees and electricity poles and other debris.

Kishtwar district is home to multiple hydroelectric power projects, which experts have long warned pose a threat to the region’s fragile ecosystem.

Hundreds of tourists trapped by floods in Pakistan

In northern and northwestern Pakistan, flash floods killed at least 164 people in the past 24 hours, including 78 people who died in the flood-hit Buner district in northwest Pakistan on Friday.

Dozens were injured as the deluge destroyed homes in villages in Buner, where authorities declared a state of emergency Friday. Ambulances have transported 56 bodies to local hospitals, according to a government statement.

The helicopter that crashed on Friday was on a relief mission when it went down in the northwest, provincial Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur said.

Rescuers evacuated 1,300 stranded tourists from the mountainous Mansehra district hit by landslides on Thursday. At least 35 people were reported missing in these areas, according to local officials.

Rescuers backed by boats and helicopters worked to reach stranded residents. Dozens were still missing and the death toll is likely to rise, Kashif Qayyum said.

More than 477 people, mostly women and children, have died in rain-related incidents across the country since 26 June, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.

Rescuers evacuated some 1,600 people from mountainous districts in both countries as sudden downpours triggered floods and landslides across the region.

Cloudbursts to blame

Weather officials forecast more heavy rains and floods in the area.

Pakistan’s disaster management agency has issued fresh alerts for glacial lake outburst flooding in the north, warning travellers to avoid affected areas.

Sudden, intense downpours over small areas known as cloudbursts are increasingly common in India’s Himalayan regions and Pakistan’s northern areas, 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 because of climate change, while damage from the storms also has increased because of unplanned development in mountain regions.

A study released this week by World Weather Attribution, a network of international scientists, found rainfall in Pakistan from 24 June to 23 July was 10% to 15% heavier because of global warming.

In 2022, the country’s worst monsoon season on record killed more than 1,700 people and caused an estimated €34.2 billion in damage.