Message from Himalayas: All's not well with the hills

Early warning systems, community preparedness, and the development of a cryospheric hazard zonation map would help reduce the impact of cloudbursts, landslides in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region

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Extreme precipitation in the Himalayan district of Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand on August 5 triggered a series of flash floods in Dharali (near Harsil) and at an army camp in Harsil. Preliminary investigations suggest heavy rainfall as the cause, though the involvement of a cloudburst—an enormous amount of precipitation in a short period of time — or other triggers remains under evaluation by experts. This is not the first such event this monsoon. The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region has already experienced multiple disasters, The village of Til in Limi Valley, Nepal, witnessed a devastating flood on May 15, followed by a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in the Rasuwa-Bhotekoshi river basin on July 8, among others.

More recently, on August 14, the Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir was struck by severe flash floods after unprecedented cloudbursts and sustained heavy rainfall. Entire villages along the Chenab River basin were inundated, dozens of people lost their lives and many more were displaced, with bridges, roads, and hydropower facilities washed away. On Tuesday (August 26), a monsoon-triggered landslide on the route to the Vaishno Devi shrine killed five. These disasters again highlight the vulnerability of Himalayan districts to compound hazards, where extreme precipitation interacts with fragile mountain slopes and infrastructure development in flood-prone valleys.