{"id":28299,"date":"2025-08-06T12:27:42","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T06:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=28299"},"modified":"2025-11-26T21:09:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T15:24:53","slug":"indian-army-searches-for-scores-missing-after-deadly-himalayan-flood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/indian-army-searches-for-scores-missing-after-deadly-himalayan-flood\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian army searches for scores missing after deadly Himalayan flood"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Indian army brought in sniffer dogs, drones and heavy earth-moving equipment Wednesday to search for scores missing a day after a deadly Himalayan flash flood.<\/p>\n

At least four people were killed and around 100 are unaccounted for — including 11 soldiers — after a wall of muddy water and debris tore down a narrow mountain valley, smashing into the town of Dharali in Uttarakhand state.<\/p>\n

“Additional army columns, along with army tracker dogs, drones, logistic drones, earthmoving equipment etc., have been moved… to hasten the efforts”, the army said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Military helicopters were working to bring in “essential supplies, medicines and (for the) evacuation of the marooned”, it added.<\/p>\n

Uttarakhand State Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the flood was caused by an intense “cloudburst” of rain, and that rescue teams had been deployed “on a war footing”.<\/p>\n

Videos broadcast on Indian media showed a terrifying surge of muddy water sweeping away multi-storey apartment blocks in the tourist region on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Several people could be seen running before being engulfed by the dark waves of debris that uprooted entire buildings.<\/p>\n

Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency late Tuesday that he had reports of “four deaths and around 100 people missing”.<\/p>\n

– ‘Extreme event’ –<\/strong><\/p>\n

Torrential monsoon rains continue to pour down.\u00a0“Residents have been moved to higher reaches in view of rising water levels due to incessant rains”, the army added.<\/p>\n

Government weather forecasters said Wednesday that all major rivers in Uttarakhand were flowing above the danger mark.<\/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 large part of the town was swamped by mud, with rescue officials estimating it was 50 feet (15 metres) deep in places, swallowing some buildings entirely.<\/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

Expert hydrologist Manish Shrestha said the 270 mm (10 inches) of rain within 24 hours reported in the flood zone “counts as an extreme event”.<\/p>\n

Shrestha, from the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, said such rain in mountains has a “more concentrated” impact than on flatter lowlands.<\/p>\n

“Such intense rainfall events are becoming increasingly common, and could be linked to climate change”, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Indian army brought in sniffer dogs, drones and heavy earth-moving equipment Wednesday to search for scores missing a day after a deadly Himalayan flash flood. At least four people were killed and around 100 are unaccounted for — including 11 soldiers — after a wall of muddy water and debris tore down a narrow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28301,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28299\/revisions\/28301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}