Five people died and dozens went missing after a devastating flash flood tore through homes and hotels at a Himalayan village in northern India this week, but residents said the toll could have been far higher if not for a religious festival drawing many to higher ground.
Nearly 200 people were rescued from Dharali, a remote mountainous village in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand state, after a cloudburst on Tuesday triggered mudslides and flash flooding in the Kheer Ganga river.
Rescue teams from the Indian army and the National Disaster Response Force continued looking for the missing people for the third day on Thursday despite poor weather and patchy communication.
Witnesses said a large number of villagers were spared because they had crossed a narrow bridge earlier that day to mark Hardoodh, a local festival held in honour of the river deity Naag Devta.
The festivities were held on higher ground, away from where unregulated construction had clustered dangerously close to the flood-prone river.
“Had people been inside their homes, the loss could have been far greater,” Sanjay Singh Pawar, a resident, told The Times of India.
Another villager, Kavita Kumari, described it as the “grace of the divine” that most people were outside, gathered in a safer place.
This side of the stream, where the festivities took place, is notably less developed and sits on elevated land. While the other side, which got washed away, had dense construction, with homes, guesthouses, and shops built close to the unstable riverbed.
One of the structures hit was a 40-room hotel run by Jai Bhagwan, who had gone to the temple for the festival when disaster struck. “First, there was a thunderous sound, and then I heard people screaming from the village nearby. They were whistling too, but we were clueless. Then came massive waves of mud, water, and rocks,” he told The Indian Express.
His four-storey hotel was washed away in the mudslide, a video of which he saw later. “In the video, my hotel is seen being washed away. It was a 40-room hotel, but it flowed away like a leaf,” he said.
Rescue teams had so far saved 190 people, including 11 army soldiers, local officials said. More than 50 remained missing and aerial surveillance was hampered by continuing rain.
Dog squads, veterinary staff, and satellite phones had been deployed to aid in the search and maintain communication in the affected zone, according to the National Disaster Response Force.
The terrain of Dharali, located at 8,600ft in the fragile Harshil valley, is vulnerable to extreme weather. Environmentalists have for years warned about unchecked development in Uttarkashi and other Himalayan regions where concrete buildings and roads are frequently built near steep slopes and riverbeds without proper drainage or environmental clearances.
