At least 224 killed and dozens feared missing after flash floods hit India and Pakistan
At least 224 people have been killed in India and Pakistan over the last 24 hours following devastating heavy rain and flash floods.
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Dozens more remain missing after torrential downpours rained down on several mountainous districts in the two countries.
At least 60 people were killed in a remote Himalayan village of Chositi in India-controlled Kashmir on Thursday.
Chositi is the last village accessible to vehicles on an annual Hindu pilgrimage route to the Machail Mata temple shrine, located in the mountains.
Many pilgrims have been evacuated to safety, but several are feared missing - with a rescue operation still under way.
Videos shared on social media show chaotic scenes of flood waters flowing through the streets, vehicles being washed away and damaged homes.
Vikram Sharma, a pilgrim, described how quickly he saw the flash floods strike.
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“I was there when it hit. We heard a blast like an explosion and within two minutes we were in the debris up to the chest. All of us escaped the fury with great difficulty,” he told the Telegraph.
Jammu and Kashmir MP Jitendra Singh said flooding occurred on a “massive scale”, addind that rescue teams had been struggling to reach the site.
He said a road had been washed away and warned that the weather was too dangerous for helicopters to land in.
Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of India’s federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir, wrote on X: “The news is grim and accurate, verified information from the area hit by the cloudburst is slow in arriving.”
Forecasters warn the area could be hit by further heavy rain and flooding.
In Pakistan, at least 164 people died following flash floods.
Rescue teams evacuated 1,300 stranded travellers from the mountainous district of Mansehra, which was struck by landslides and flooding.
Up to 78 people were killed in its Buner district, the northwestern district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to a government administrator.
A state of emergency has been declared in the area.
Ali Amin Gadapur, Chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said a M-17 helicopter crashed as a result of bad weather while flying to Bajaur, which borders Afghanistan.
Another nine people died in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while at least five died in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region.
