Chamoli district of Uttarakhand has encountered a sudden cloudburst that has resulted in massive destruction, leaving several people missing and many houses buried under rubble. It happened late in the night in the Nandanagar neighborhood, where heavy flooding and landslides have occurred due to the torrential rain. The gushing water and mud quickly swept away whole houses, and their dwellers in villages did not have enough time to run away.
According to the local officials, at least seven individuals are missing, and two of them are rescued after the calamity. The first thing to do was to rush rescue teams to the site as soon as the first light appeared so that the evacuation and search actions could be implemented by the State Disaster Response Force, as well as medical staff. Ambulances are placed there in order to offer emergency help to the injured or pulled out of the rubble.
Swollen streams swept away several additional houses in nearby villages as a result of the cloudburst, which also did a lot of damage. This has forced families to enter schools and community buildings overnight as they have been forced to go home with no shelter. As the number of those affected keeps increasing, authorities are preparing relief in the form of food, blankets, and medical assistance, among others.
This is a disaster, which comes at a time when Uttarakhand has already been experiencing heavy monsoon rains. Damaged roads, flash floods and landslides have isolated several towns, making it difficult to deliver aid. In Mussoorie, almost 2500 tourists are still stuck as routes were blocked by landslides and debris. The government is trying to clear roads and re-establish communications, and day after day of rainfall complicates the task.
In the meantime, Himachal Pradesh has registered an increasing number of people killed by the monsoon, as over 400 lives have been lost in June alone by rain-related incidents. Rainfall has been almost eight per cent higher than usual in the entire country, and this has raised the concern of more natural disasters as the monsoon starts to shift to its withdrawal stage.
In Chamoli, the first action should be to find the missing and secure the survivors. Rather unfavourable weather conditions do not stop relief teams, and people living in the area, most of whom have lost all they had, eagerly await news about their loved ones. The event is another resounding message of the fading resilience of states in the Himalayas to extreme weather conditions that are becoming more certain and catastrophic over the past years.
