A flash flood driving a torrent of mud smashed into a town in India’s Himalayan region on Tuesday, killing at least four people with around 100 others missing.
The roaring waters tore down a narrow mountain valley, demolishing buildings as the flood barrelled into the town of Dharali in Uttarakhand state.
“It is a serious situation,” Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.
“We have received information about four deaths and around 100 people missing. We pray for their safety.”
Videos broadcast on Indian media showed a terrifying surge of muddy water sweeping away multi-storey apartment blocks in the tourist region.
Several people could be seen running before being engulfed by the dark waves of debris that uprooted entire buildings.
Uttarakhand State Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said rescue teams had been deployed “on a war footing”.
India’s army said 150 troops had reached the town, helping rescue around 20 people who had survived the wall of freezing sludge.
Chief Minister Dhami said the flood was caused by a sudden and intense “cloudburst”, calling the destruction “extremely sad and distressing”.
The India Meteorological Department issued a red alert warning for the area, saying it had recorded “extremely heavy” rainfall of around 21 centimetres (eight inches) in isolated parts of Uttarakhand.
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.
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.
