MELTED LIKE WAX

The Western Himalayas have taken a severe hit this monsoon, as shifting wind patterns fuel extreme weather events across the region.

- Analysis by Akshit Sangomla

FOR THOSE living in the Western Himalayan region, there was nothing august about August 2025, or the two months preceding it.

The states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territories (UTs) of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh were battered by a series of extreme weather events, from heavy rains to cloudbursts to flash floods, as soon as the monsoon season officially began on May 24. The chain of tragedies started as early as May 27, when a cloudburst triggered flash floods and landslides in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district and damaged the under-construction 12 MW Karnah Hydro Power Project. From that point on, nearly every week brought one or more disasters. An analysis by Down To Earth (DTE) shows that between June 1 and August 31, these four states and UTs experienced extreme weather events on 88 out of 92 days, and recorded 506 deaths. In other words, they accounted for nearly one-quarter of all monsoon-related fatalities across the country during that period.

In fact, the number of days during which the four states and UTs have experienced extreme weather events (which include heavy rains, floods, landslides, cloudburst, lightning and storms) is higher than in any other monsoon season since 2022. In Jammu and Kashmir, the proportion of days with extreme weather events during the first three months of the monsoon season has increased from 10.8 per cent in 2022 to 51 per cent. The proportion of extreme weather days have almost doubled in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Ladakh.