Rainfall statistics mislead as cloudbursts, flash floods ravage north Himalayan states
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A spate of cloudbursts flash floods and landslides across the Himalayan states of Jammu and Kashmir , Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand this monsoon has again laid bare the mountain's risk to short, violent spells of rain.It also indicated that seasonal rainfall in the 'normal' category may not always signal safety.The India Meteorological Department 's (IMD) district-wise rainfall data till August 17 this season shows a striking contrast: several districts that saw deadly cloudbursts or flash floods are in the 'normal' to 'below-normal' rainfall bracket. Examples include Kishtwar and Kathua in Jammu division and Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand.The IMD classifies rainfall as 'large excess' if it is 60 per cent or more above the season's normal, 'excess' if it is 20-59 per cent, and 'normal' if within 19 per cent. Rainfall that is 20-59 per cent below normal is 'deficient', while 60-99 per cent below is termed 'large deficient'.Himachal Pradesh has received 613.6 mm of rainfall so far this monsoon, 18 per cent above the Long-Period Average (LPA) of 519.5 mm. Jammu and Kashmir recorded 362.9 mm, 6 per cent below the LPA of 385.2 mm. Uttarakhand received 947.9 mm, 14 per cent above the LPA of 830.1 mm. Despite these variations, all three states fall in the 'normal' rainfall category this season.In Jammu and Kashmir, Kishtwar has received only 86.5 mm of rainfall so far against a normal of 301.5 mm, a shortfall of 71 per cent. Despite this, it has been among the worst affected this year, with a cloudburst-triggered flash flood on August 14 killing at least 60 people and leaving many missing.Kathua has recorded 854.6 mm of rainfall so far this monsoon, 5 per cent below the normal of 898.6 mm, but cloudbursts in Rajbagh and Janglote areas on August 17 caused flash floods and landslides that killed at least seven people and damaged infrastructure, including rail tracks and the Jammu-Kathua highway.In Reasi district, heavy rains and high Chenab levels washed away a crucial road patch; schools were shut across parts of Jammu division amid landslide and flash-flood risk. In Rajouri and Poonch, swollen rivers and streams have led to inundations and landslide damage.While Reasi recorded 23 per cent surplus rainfall, Poonch recorded slightly above normal and Rajouri gauged 66 per cent of precipitation."August is the peak monsoon month; heavy rainfall is not unusual. But with saturated land, deforestation and unstable slopes, even a 50-60 mm downpour can trigger an extreme event," said Mahesh Palawat, Vice President, Meteorology and Climate Change, Skymet Weather.He warned that such inclement weather events will "persist, in fact increase, due to global warming", while the growing number of unstable glacial lakes adds to downstream flood risks.Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand has recorded near-normal seasonal rainfall, around 3 per cent above average. However, on August 5, a cloudburst over the upper Kheer Ganga (Kheer Gad) catchment triggered a debris-laden flash flood that devastated Dharali and the adjoining Harsil area, causing widespread destruction.Rudraprayag also saw a cloudburst-linked devastation in parts of Kedarghati in late July; houses and vehicles came under debris as rivers swelled. The district has recorded 999.2 mm of rainfall this monsoon season so far, 11 per cent below the normal of 1,125.9 mm."The Himalayas are eco-sensitive zones and a distinct pattern is emerging. Average precipitation data alone cannot indicate whether an extreme event is likely," said Professor Sachchida Nand Tripathi, Dean, Kotak School of Sustainability, IIT Kanpur.He said that orographic rainfall and partially melted glaciers have made lakes and water bodies "prone to sudden bursts that can unleash floods", while improved high-resolution forecasting tools are urgently needed.In contrast, some districts have seen seasonal excess rainfall without major disasters so far. For example, Dehradun has recorded around 22 per cent excess, Haridwar about 52 per cent and Bageshwar an unusually high seasonal surplus of nearly 218 per cent as of August 17, according to IMD data.Multiple cloudbursts, flash floods and landslides have been reported in Mandi and Kullu districts of Himachal Pradesh which have recorded 69 and 47 per cent above normal rainfall this monsoon season so far, with the State Emergency Operation Centre reporting hundreds of roads cut off earlier this month.In Kinnaur, high mountain slopes have remained unstable, with fatal shooting stones reported near Yulla Kanda amid active weather conditions. On August 16, two tourists from Delhi were killed in one such incident, according to reports."It is established that cloudburst or cloudburst-like conditions are increasing in the Himalayan region due to abnormal warming of oceans," said Kartiki Negi, Lead, Climate Impacts, Climate Trends."For every degree rise in temperature, the atmosphere's capacity to hold moisture increases by 7 per cent. Towering convective clouds, when confined by mountainous terrain, can unleash intense rainfall over a small area in a short period," she said.Meteorologically, a cloudburst refers to an extremely intense and hyper-local downpour, defined as more than 100 mm of rain within an hour over an area of 20 to 30 square kilometres. Such events are nearly impossible to predict with precision and can unleash sudden debris flows and flash floods, even when the season's overall rainfall appears unremarkable.Steep, fragile slopes, deeply incised rivers and the orographic lift of moist monsoon winds amplify this risk.
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Scroll.in
2 hours ago
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It was around 1.30 pm on August 5, when after consistent rains, the residents of Dharali, a picturesque village in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi district, began fearing the worst: a disastrous flash flood. Mohammad Shoaib, a 21-year-old welder from Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh, was in Dharali's market area, waiting to pick up three of his co-workers in a car, when suddenly he heard people from the nearby Mukhba village and from Dharali, settled a little higher up and away from the market, screaming, shouting and whistling. They were warning everyone below to run for their lives as they saw a flash flood approaching Dharali. With his co-workers nowhere in sight, Shoaib, who, amidst the screams and whistles, could also hear the loud rumbles and thuds of the incoming flash flood, started the car and sped through Dharali at about 70km-80 km per hour. When he stopped and looked back, the entire market area behind him had either been swept away in the flash flood or buried under the huge amounts of sediment and boulders that Kheer Gad, or Kheer Ganga – a Himalayan stream passing through Dharali – brought down with it. He had escaped the flood by barely a second or two. Despite several days of post-disaster rescue efforts by the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, the Indian Army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, and Uttarkashi district administration teams, only one body had been recovered as of August 13. According to the Dehradun-based State Emergency Operation Centre, at least 68 people remain missing from Dharali and Harsil, a settlement about three kilometres away from Dharali, where an army camp was damaged in another flood-related disaster that also struck on August 5, leaving nine army personnel missing. The 40-60 feet of sediment and boulders deposited by the flash flood in Dharali's market areas have made it almost impossible to locate and recover bodies. The people missing comprise Dharali residents, tourists, and labourers, mostly from Nepal, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, of whom the majority, 25, are Nepali labourers. The primary cause of the flash flood is still unknown. However, experts speculate that it could have been a rock and ice avalanche, followed by temporary damming that was later breached, which may have caused the flood. Alternatively, a possible landslide lake outburst flood, or LLOF, may have occurred. The Uttarakhand government initially claimed that the flood was caused by a cloudburst, but experts are yet to confirm this. Increased construction, despite history of floods When Sanjay Saini, a mountaineer, first set foot in Dharali in 1996, he saw just four buildings in the market area that now lies buried under heaps of sediment, boulders, and rubble. Construction of houses, lodges, shops, and hotels in the same area gathered pace only in the past two decades, driven by rising tourist numbers in the area and pilgrim footfall to the Gangotri shrine, about 20 kilometres from Dharali. Resorts followed, and a few years ago, homestays also began to appear. 'Traditionally, houses in this region were built on stable slopes, away from rivers. It was well understood that streams in the Himalaya are not always gentle. They are powerful and have carved out valleys over millennia,' said Piyoosh Rautela, a geologist and former executive director at the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority. In recent times however, settlements have come up in economically viable yet unstable areas, mostly along roads and rivers. In June 2013, when several rivers in Uttarakhand were in spate, the Kheer Gad also flooded. At the time, large amounts of sediment and rocks brought by the stream were deposited in the Dharali market area. A few hotels near the stream were damaged, many buildings were filled with five to 10 feet of sediment, and several cars were buried under the sediment. 'Extensive flood protection works were carried out along the Kheer Gad after the 2013 flood, so we thought our worries about future floods had been resolved,' said 36-year-old Dharali resident Bhimraj Panwar, whose ancestral house was completely damaged in the August 5 disaster. Post-2013, when reinforced cement concrete walls were built on the sides of the stream to protect the village from future floods, more buildings were constructed in the Dharali market area, Panwar said. Dharali residents recalled that they witnessed a flood in 2018 too. Historically, too, the village has witnessed flooding. Kalp Kedar, a temple in the village, located in the disaster-hit area, now lies completely buried under material brought down by the flood. In the past too, it was likely buried under debris from a flooded Kheer Gad and was partly excavated around the 1980s, said a senior geologist, Navin Juyal. 'This shows that the area has been experiencing the deposition of sediments from floods for a long time,' Juyal said. Constructing on Kheer Gad's path On August 7, two days after the disaster, the Indian Space Research Organisation's National Remote Sensing Centre released images sourced through Cartosat-2S satellites. These images show the village before the disaster on June 13, 2024, and after the disaster on August 7, 2025. The images reveal the extent of damage in the Dharali market area following the flash flood. The images show that the market was established on a land shaped like a fan–scientifically called a debris-flow fan – formed over the years by sediments deposited during high, medium, and low flows in the Kheer Gad. 'Establishing a settlement on land where the river continually deposits sediments is precarious, as it carries the risk of a Dharali-like disaster,' said Wolfgang Schwanghart, a geomorphologist at the University of Potsdam, Germany, who has been studying natural hazards and disasters in Himalayan areas, including Uttarakhand, for over a decade. Schwanghart noted that even though suitable land for settlement is scarce in the difficult terrain of Uttarakhand Himalayas, debris-flow fans should be strictly avoided for construction and habitation, and should be left undisturbed. Manish Kumar, an ecohydrologist and climate adaptation professional who has worked on Himalayan hydrology, including in Uttarakhand, for nearly two decades, described debris-flow fans as 'safety valves' of streams like the Kheer Gad, which flow through steep slopes before entering flatter areas. Kumar explained, 'Constructing over these fans is like choking the stream's safety valves. The stream is bound to break out and reclaim its area sooner or later, which is what happened in Dharali.' The disaster, Kumar said, was a warning against unrestricted development in sensitive and complex Himalayan areas. On August 11, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami instructed officials to identify disaster-prone areas in the state and ensure that no new constructions are built there. He also gave instructions to ban construction near water bodies, such as rivers and streams. In 2013, too, when floods struck several parts of Uttarakhand and at least 4,000 people died in the Kedarnath Valley alone, the then Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna banned construction along river banks. However, in reality, several buildings, especially hotels, beside rivers that were swept away in the floods were rebuilt, some on the very same spots where they had earlier stood. After 2013, environmental norms continued to be violated for the construction of several large infrastructure projects such as hydropower and national highways. Responding to Dhami's decision to ban future construction in hazard-prone areas, Ravi Chopra, a Dehradun-based environmental scientist and development activist, said, 'This is simply an executive order to officials and does not carry legal weight. In fact, it has a major lacuna – it addresses future construction activities. What about existing settlements like Dharali? How is the government planning to ensure the safety of those already living in hazard-prone areas?' Following the 2013 disaster, orders, including those by the Uttarakhand High Court and the National Green Tribunal, were issued to prevent building near rivers. However, these orders were also violated. 'What we need is a committed officialdom that will ensure measures are taken to mitigate disasters. That commitment is usually missing,' said Chopra, who, after the 2013 Uttarakhand disaster, headed two Supreme Court-appointed committees to review the impacts of hydropower projects, and a mega national highway widening project in Uttarakhand – the Char Dham Pariyojana. Slope stability A looming threat to Dharali and nearby villages is the proposed felling of about 6,000 deodar, or Himalayan cedar, trees to widen national highway-34, the road to the Gangotri shrine. These trees stand along a 10-kilometre stretch between Jhala and Jangla in Uttarkashi district, which includes Dharali and Harsil. Meanwhile, the Border Roads Organisation has been pushing to widen the national highway at the cost of felling these trees and weakening slope stability. Experts warn that cutting these trees will destabilise slopes, increasing the risk of landslides. This Jhala-Jangla stretch is part of the Char Dham Pariyojana, a Ministry of Road Transport and Highways' project aimed at widening 889 kilometres of national highways in Uttarakhand. The project has faced criticism for reasons including the ministry's decision to divide the 889 kilometres in 53 smaller sections to avoid environmental impact assessment (EIA). In 2023, the ministry asked geologist Juyal, environmentalist Hemant Dhyani, and hydrogeologist Rajneesh Khilnani to review the Detailed Project Report for a particular stretch of the Char Dham project – 100 kilometres of NH-34 between Gangotri and Uttarkashi. The report had proposed expansion of the road to a 10-metre-wide tarred surface (called double lane with paved shoulder, or DL-PS configuration). The experts were tasked with suggesting disaster-resilient alternatives that minimise slope disturbance during road widening. Their recommendations included constructing reinforced concrete cement walls on the side of the road facing away from the slope, and filling them with locally available sediments. This approach would help save the trees from being felled and keep the slopes undisturbed. The Jhala-Jangla segment, which lies within the stretch that the experts reviewed, is particularly sensitive. The 6,000 trees marked for felling on this segment stand on slopes strewn with rocks and boulders, which are debris from past avalanches. 'Trees have the essential function of gripping these slopes with their roots, thereby keeping these slopes stable,' Juyal said. Flood protection work done in Dharali after the 2013 disaster. Image by special arrangement. Dhyani said, 'Streams here, like the Kheer Gad, are already prone to flash floods, which have damaged NH-34 in the past, too. Cutting thousands of deodar trees adds further risk of the highway being frequently damaged by future landslides.' Parts of national highway-34 were also damaged during the August 5 disaster, delaying rescue efforts. Also, the 10-kilometre stretch between Jhala and Jangla, falls within the Bhagirathi eco-sensitive zone, which was notified in 2012, where construction work in hazard zones, on steep slopes, and on slopes with high erosion is prohibited. In 2019, the Supreme Court gave directions to form a high-powered committee to review the Char Dham project. For works in the Bhagirathi eco-sensitive zone, the high-powered committee recommended avoiding deodar felling, conducting detailed environmental impact assessment, and securing necessary clearances from the environment ministry. Dhyani, who is also a member of the high-powered committee, said that the Border Roads Organisation did not follow the panel's recommendations. The Border Roads Organisation's push for cutting the 6,000 deodar trees is also in violation of a Supreme Court judgement of December 14, 2021, regarding the Char Dham project, which gives directions to avoid felling of deodar trees. A civil society group from Uttarkashi, 'Himalayi Nagrik Drishti Manch', alleges that to bypass environmental clearance, the Border Roads Organisation concealed from the environment ministry that the Jhala-Jangla stretch lies within Bhagirathi eco-sensitive zone. On August 19, 2024, the Border Roads Organisation wrote to the Uttarakhand forest department claiming that environmental impact assessment and environmental clearance might not be necessary. Mongabay India emailed the Border Roads Organisation for their response regarding the alleged violations and received no response at the time of publishing. In view of the August 5 disaster in Dharali and the need to maintain slope stability in and around the village, Juyal and Dhyani submitted a note to the transport ministry on August 12, urging it to consider an alternative approach to widening the Jhala-Jangla stretch to save the 6,000 deodar trees from being felled.
Hindustan Times
3 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
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