At least 60 people have been killed, and more than 100 are missing, a day after sudden, torrential rain caused floods and landslides in Indian Kashmir, authorities and local media said on Friday .
On Thursday, gushing mudslides and floodwaters overwhelmed the town of Chasoti in Indian Kashmir, washing away pilgrims who had gathered for lunch before climbing up the hill to a popular pilgrimage spot.
Bags, clothes and other belongings, caked in mud, lay scattered amid broken electric poles and mud on Friday, as rescue workers used shovels, ropes and crossed makeshift bridges in an attempt to extricate people out of the debris.
The Machail Yatra is a popular pilgrimage to the high altitude Himalayan shrine of Machail Mata, one of the manifestations of Goddess Durga, and pilgrims trek to the temple from Chasoti, where the road for vehicles ends.
Thursday’s incident comes a little over a week after a flood and mudslide engulfed an entire village in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the start of a nearly two-hour speech on the country’s 79th independence day that “Nature has been testing us.
“In the last few days, we have had to deal with landslides, cloudbursts and other natural calamities.”
A cloudburst, according to the Indian Meteorological Department, is a sudden, intense downpour of over 100mm of rain in just one hour that can trigger sudden floods, landslides, and devastation, especially in mountainous regions during the monsoon.
