‘Everything has been lost’: Kashmir floods, landslides kill dozens

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir — Forty-year-old Ruksana wails arsenic she looks astatine her home, a desolate one-storey operation stripped of windows and doors adjacent to the raging Tawi stream successful Jammu’s rundown neighbourhood of Gujar Nagar. A coarse coating of mud drips down the outer walls of the house.

“My hubby is handicapped, and I person built this location by moving astatine people’s homes,” she wails. “I could lone rescue my 2 children and husband. Everything else, their clothes, their books, nutrient has been lost.”

For dozens of families, the nonaccomplishment is adjacent graver. At slightest 40 radical person died and scores person been injured arsenic torrential rains successful Indian-administered Kashmir triggered large landslides this week, with flash floods sweeping distant homes and knocking down telecommunication networks and powerlines.

The bulk of those killed were pilgrims travelling to the Vaishno Devi temple successful Jammu’s Katra. The shrine, 1 of the astir fashionable Hindu pilgrimage spots, is located astir 60km from Jammu city. Devotees trek astir 12–13km uphill from the basal campy to scope it.

“There was chaos. Death had ne'er seemed [so] close. Some radical are inactive missing,” said Rakesh Kumar, 42, who had travel to Katra from Madhya Pradesh, a cardinal Indian state. “The net and phones were dead, which created a batch of panic.”

Jammu recorded its heaviest-ever 24-hour rainfall connected Tuesday – 380mm, compared with the erstwhile grounds of 270.4mm successful 1988 – triggering wide devastation crossed the region. Some of the deceased pilgrims visiting the Vaishno Devi shrine person been identified arsenic residents of Punjab, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh states.

A pistillate stands successful beforehand of houses damaged by the deadly flood caused by sudden, dense rainfall successful Chasoti municipality of Kishtwar district, Indian-administered Kashmir, August 15, 2025 [Stringer/Reuters]

‘We anticipation they are alive’

Mohan Das, different devotee from the authorities of Uttar Pradesh, said that helium was looking for 5 friends who were missing. “We don’t cognize wherever they are. It has been 12 hours since we past saw them,” Das said.

Jammu abuts the mountains that girdle the Kashmir Valley. The latest situation came days aft a bid of flash floods successful the distant regions of Kishtwar and Kathua districts killed dozens successful Indian-administered Kashmir.

The determination medication has acceptable up alleviation camps and announced compensation for affected families. The region’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and the federally appointed Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha person toured the worst-hit areas. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised the cardinal government’s assistance, and the authorities said they evacuated much than 5,000 radical stranded successful the floods.

In Jammu, the floods surged done the metropolis and swept distant bridges connected the Tawi, a large lifeline for the region. Images showed policemen successful Jammu desperately trying to halt postulation approaching a damaged span earlier a broadside of it collapsed.

Along the steep mountainous routes that hint a winding way done the craggy hills of Jammu, roads caved successful nether landslides, forcing the lone onshore way from the remainder of India to the portion to unopen temporarily. The Indian authorities besides mobilised a fleet of subject transport craft to fast-track the transportation of assistance and different indispensable supplies into the region, wherever aerial postulation was closed connected Tuesday earlier operations resumed the pursuing day.

India’s National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and constabulary unit transportation a dormant assemblage connected a stretcher during rescue operations aft flash floods successful Chasoti village, Kishtwar district, Indian-administered-Kashmir, Saturday, August 16, 2025 [Channi Anand/AP Photo]

‘Waters adjacent successful connected Kashmir’

Bashash Mahmood, 23, a assemblage instrumentality student, was abruptly awakened by a midnight telephone portion sleeping astatine his edifice successful Srinagar. On the enactment was his cousin, calling from Anantnag—58 kilometres away.

Floodwaters connected Wednesday knocked down mobile and energy towers and severed optical fibre cables, crippling the region’s full telecommunications infrastructure.

So Bashash could lone perceive a jumble of crackling words arsenic helium tried to marque consciousness of what his relative was saying. He yet managed to drawback an urgent SOS message: floodwaters had surged extracurricular his location successful Bijbehara, Anantnag, and his household was successful danger.

He took his car and raced on bare roads successful the mediate of the night, past the Indian service garrison astatine Badambagh, and done the sprawling saffron fields of Pampore.

When helium arrived astatine Sangam, a canyon wherever 2 large rivers successful Anantnag join, helium rolled down his windows, the rainfall pelting against his face. “I realised that h2o had risen dangerously adjacent to the embankment.”

Once helium reached home, Bashash got to enactment and carried household items specified arsenic a fridge, furnishings and utensils to the 2nd storey of their house, emptying the crushed floor.

In the morning, videos went viral showing radical paddling rafts done the streets, arsenic h2o had submerged ample parts of South Kashmir, particularly Anantnag district.

In Srinagar, the region’s biggest city, panic reached a crescendo connected Wednesday day – reinforced by nationalist memories of apocalyptic floods that had struck successful 2014.

Back then, floodwaters from swollen rivers had breached the banks, burying ample parts of the Kashmir valley. As Bashash recalls, erstwhile the waters yet receded 11 years ago, the floods had near 2 feet of sludge residue that locals scooped up with their bare hands earlier cleaning their homes to marque them livable again. “Just the thought of however hard it was for america to defecate terrifies me. We would alternatively garbage to devour thing to get ourselves constipated due to the fact that determination were nary toilets,” helium says.

Haunted by those memories, residents crossed Kashmir were seen assembling sandbags and plugging gaps to forestall breaches done which the swelling stream mightiness come. If it was the Tawi successful Jammu, it was the Jhelum stream – besides a lifeline-turned-threat – that poses the information successful Kashmir. The stream crisscrosses its mode done the full magnitude of the Kashmir vale earlier crossing implicit into Pakistan.

The floods person revived memories of the devastating floods of 2014. Here, a Kashmiri antheral rows a makeshift raft carrying a pistillate and a kid done the flood waters successful Srinagar September 20, 2014 [Danish Ismail/ Reuters]

Echoes of 2014, symptom of 2019

On Wednesday, residents rushed to relocate oregon determination their household goods to higher storeys successful their homes successful a bid to debar a repetition of 2014. The household of Nazir Wani, a 70-year-old antheral suffering from a chronic pulmonary upset that requires him to continuously person oxygen connected, said they were moving to a antithetic neighbourhood, immoderate 14km away, astatine a higher altitude.

“Where would we spell if the waters emergence and we get stuck? Where volition we get the oxygen proviso from? We are not taking immoderate chances,” said Nousheen Wani, his daughter. The household bundled the aged antheral into a ample sports car, his eyebags sagging, arsenic helium took dense breaths. They hauled 5 cylinders and 2 oxygen concentrators and slid them betwixt the footwear abstraction and the rear seats, earlier driving away.

These floods person deed Kashmir amid crippling economical woes.

Six years ago, the Indian authorities stripped the region’s historical peculiar presumption and demoted it from a authorities to a federally governed region, a determination that escalated tensions with archrival Pakistan. To forestall protests, India imposed a large lockdown, suspending telecommunications and jailing thousands of people. The lockdown strangled the region’s economy, with an estimated economical nonaccomplishment worthy $1.5bn.

Echoes of those measures proceed to beryllium felt crossed the portion adjacent today. According to the latest Indian authorities statistics, younker unemployment stands astatine 17.4 percent, overmuch higher than the nationalist mean of 10.2 percent.

The floods endanger to compound that crisis. Abdullah, the elected main curate successful the disputed province, drew parallels with the aftermath of the 2014 floods. Back then, too, helium was successful the aforesaid role, but astatine the time, Indian-administered Kashmir had semiautonomous status, giving Abdullah, successful immoderate ways, much powerfulness than different Indian authorities leaders.

In a station connected X, helium complained astir the nonaccomplishment of authorities to larn from the lessons of 2014. “What flood mitigation measures were implemented since Oct (sic) 2014?” helium asked, criticising those who ruled betwixt his 2 tenures, including Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, a conjugation spouse successful the provincial authorities betwixt 2015 and 2018. “These are each questions that the elected authorities volition question answers to due to the fact that the past 48 hours person been a shocking eye-opener.”

Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, successful achromatic garment and a cap, speaks to radical affected by flash floods successful Chasoti village, Kishtwar district, Indian-administered Kashmir, Saturday, August 16, 2025 [Channi Anand/ AP Photo]

‘Decimation of section floodplains’

While utmost upwind events proceed to hap regularly crossed India, biology experts successful Kashmir accidental mediocre earthy assets absorption and a flurry of reckless developmental projects person amplified threats.

“In the past 5 years, the authorities person felled up to a cardinal trees for what they telephone their pasture onshore retrieval programmes,” explained Raja Muzaffar Bhat, a Srinagar-based activist.

In 2020, authorities successful Kashmir began evicting forest-dwelling tribal communities from their homes by cutting down their orchards. Authorities accused the communities of having “encroached” connected wood land. However, the “tribals” importune they person been cultivating the onshore for generations.

Major operation projects, including tunnels bored done mountains, besides added to the dangers of ecological collapse, Bhat suggested.

He cited the illustration of a 61km roadworthy task that aims to skirt past traffic-congested Srinagar metropolis and easiness entree betwixt different districts of Kashmir. The roadworthy is being built connected floodplains that historically person absorbed surging waters, redeeming Srinagar from flooding. Instead, Bhat said, it could person been built connected elevated pillars.

Tonnes of ungraded were extracted from precious elevated tablelands called karewas for laying the foundations connected which these roads person been built, and they volition walk done the floodplains of Kandizal (between the districts of Srinagar and Pulwama), Muzaffar said. The floodplains had an important relation arsenic they absorbed the h2o surge and prevented Srinagar metropolis from being flooded.

Kashmir’s “topographical equilibrium that had existed people for hundreds of years” is being disturbed, Muzaffar said. And this week’s floods could soon go the norm.