Flash floods triggered by torrential rains kill at least 120 people in
India and Pakistan
[August 15, 2025]
By CHANNI ANAND and RIAZ KHAN
CHOSITI, India (AP) — Flash floods triggered by torrential rains have
killed at least 120 people and left scores others missing in India and
Pakistan over the past 24 hours, officials said Friday, as rescuers
brought to safety some 1,600 people from two mountainous districts in
the neighboring countries.
Sudden, intense downpours over small areas known as cloudbursts are
increasingly common in India’s Himalayan regions and Pakistan’s northern
areas, which are prone to flash floods and landslides. Cloudbursts have
the potential to wreak havoc by causing intense flooding and landslides,
impacting thousands of people in the mountainous regions.
Experts say cloudbursts have increased in recent years partly because of
climate change, while damage from the storms also has increased because
of unplanned development in mountain regions.
Dozens missing in remote Himalayan village
In India-controlled Kashmir, rescuers searched for missing people in the
remote Himalayan village of Chositi on Friday after flash floods a day
earlier left at least 60 people dead and at least 80 missing, officials
said.
Officials halted rescue operations overnight but rescued at least 300
people Thursday after a powerful cloudburst triggered floods and
landslides. Officials said many missing people were believed to have
been washed away.
At least 50 seriously injured people were treated in local hospitals,
many of them rescued from a stream filled with mud and debris. Disaster
management official Mohammed Irshad said the number of missing people
could increase.
Weather officials forecast more heavy rains and floods in the area.
Chositi, in Kashmir’s Kishtwar district, is the last village accessible
to motor vehicles on the route of an ongoing annual Hindu pilgrimage to
a mountainous shrine at an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,500 feet.)
Officials said the pilgrimage, which began July 25 and was scheduled to
end on Sept. 5, was suspended.
The devastating floods swept away the main community kitchen set up for
the pilgrims, as well as dozens of vehicles and motorbikes. More than
200 pilgrims were in the kitchen at the time of the flood, which also
damaged or washed away many of the homes clustered together in the
foothills, officials said.
Photos and videos on social media show extensive damage with household
goods strewn next to damaged vehicles and homes in the village.
Authorities made makeshift bridges Friday to help stranded pilgrims
cross a muddy water channel.
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Household goods are strewn around next to buildings damaged by flash
floods in Chositi village, Kishtwar district, Indian-controlled
Kashmir, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Channi Anand)
Kishtwar district is home to multiple hydroelectric power projects,
which experts have long warned pose a threat to the region’s fragile
ecosystem.
Hundreds of tourists trapped by floods in Pakistan
In northern and northwestern Pakistan, flash floods killed at least
60 people while rescuers evacuated 1,300 stranded tourists from a
mountainous district hit by landslides. At least 35 people were
reported missing in these areas, according to local officials.
More than 360 people, mostly women and children, have died in
rain-related incidents across Pakistan since June 26.
Bilal Faizi, a provincial emergency service spokesman in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, said rescuers worked for hours to save 1,300 tourists
after they were trapped by flash flooding and landslides in the
Siran Valley in Mansehra district on Thursday.
The Gilgit-Baltistan region in Pakistan has been hit by multiple
floods since July, triggering landslides along the Karakoram
Highway, a key trade and travel route linking Pakistan and China
that is used by tourists to travel to the scenic north. The region
is home to scenic glaciers that provide 75% of Pakistan’s stored
water supply.
Pakistan’s disaster management agency has issued fresh alerts for
glacial lake outburst flooding in the north, warning travelers to
avoid affected areas.
A study released this week by World Weather Attribution, a network
of international scientists, found rainfall in Pakistan from June 24
to July 23 was 10% to 15% heavier because of global warming. In
2022, the country’s worst monsoon season on record killed more than
1,700 people and caused an estimated $40 billion in damage.
___
Khan reported from Peshawar, Pakistan. Associated Press writers
Anwarullah Khan in Bajur, Pakistan, Abdul Rehman in Gilgit, Pakistan
and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan and Ishfaq Hussain in
Muzaffarabad, Pakistan contributed to this story.
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