A flash flood driving a torrent of mud smashed into a town in India’s Himalayan region on Tuesday, killing at least four people with around 100 others missing.<\/p>\n
The roaring waters tore down a narrow mountain valley, demolishing buildings as the flood barrelled into the town of Dharali in Uttarakhand state.<\/p>\n
“It is a serious situation,” Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.<\/p>\n
“We have received information about four deaths and around 100 people missing. We pray for their safety.”<\/p>\n
Videos broadcast on Indian media showed a terrifying surge of muddy water sweeping away multi-storey apartment blocks in the tourist region.<\/p>\n
Several people could be seen running before being engulfed by the dark waves of debris that uprooted entire buildings.<\/p>\n
Uttarakhand State Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said rescue teams had been deployed “on a war footing”.<\/p>\n
– ‘Wake-up call’ –<\/p>\n
India’s army said 150 troops had reached the town, helping rescue around 20 people who had survived the wall of freezing sludge.<\/p>\n
“A massive mudslide struck Dharali… triggering a sudden flow of debris and water through the settlement,” the army said.<\/p>\n
Images released by the army, taken from the site after the main torrent had passed, showed a river of slow-moving mud.<\/p>\n
A wide swath of the town was swamped by deep debris. In places, the mud lapped at the rooftops of houses.<\/p>\n
State Disaster Response Force commander Arpan Yaduvanshi said the mud was 50 feet (15 metres) deep in places, swamping some buildings entirely.<\/p>\n
“Search and rescue efforts are ongoing, with all available resources being deployed to locate and evacuate any remaining stranded persons,” army spokesman Suneel Bartwal said.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences in a statement, and said that “no stone is being left unturned in providing assistance”.<\/p>\n
Chief Minister Dhami said the flood was caused by a sudden and intense “cloudburst”, calling the destruction “extremely sad and distressing”.<\/p>\n
The India Meteorological Department issued a red alert warning for the area, saying it had recorded “extremely heavy” rainfall of around 21 centimetres (eight inches) in isolated parts of Uttarakhand.<\/p>\n
Deadly floods and landslides are common during the monsoon season from June to September, but experts say climate change, coupled with urbanisation, is increasing their frequency and severity.<\/p>\n
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization said last year that increasingly intense floods and droughts are a “distress signal” of what is to come as climate change makes the planet’s water cycle ever more unpredictable.<\/p>\n
“The devastating loss… must be our final wake-up call”, said climate activist Harjeet Singh, from the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation in New Delhi.<\/p>\n
“This tragedy is a deadly cocktail”, he added.<\/p>\n
“Global warming is super-charging our monsoons with extreme rain, while on the ground, our own policies of cutting hills; unscientific, unsustainable, and reckless construction; and choking rivers for so-called ‘development’ are destroying our natural defences.”<\/p>\n
bur-pjm\/aha\/mlm<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A flash flood driving a torrent of mud smashed into a town in India’s Himalayan region on Tuesday, killing at least four people with around 100 others missing. The roaring waters tore down a narrow mountain valley, demolishing buildings as the flood barrelled into the town of Dharali in Uttarakhand state. “It is a serious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[576,349,359],"class_list":["post-5601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-flood","tag-india","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}