In early September 2025, cloudbursts caused catastrophes flash floods, landslides and devastation of all sorts in parts of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. Heavy downpours in the Mandi and Kullu districts of Himachal washed away roads and houses, and saw bridges swept away by the volume of water from the land slides, and multiple fatalities and missing persons. These torrential downpours also inundated adjacent border districts of Punjab, Pathankot and Gurdaspur, damaging crops and flooding transportation routes.
When NDRF teams were doing investigations and identifying the missing, the search followed with their ‘sustance’ search and rescue operations, while locals continued to be trapped, tourists remained stranded and prices for available accommodation quadrupled outside of season despite roads being private and services not yet reestablished. Even climate experts expect the recurrence of these weather episodes to increase as these events continue to be fuelled by anthropogenic climate change, which did see unexpected unplanned development in these ecologically precarious areas of the country, as well as in Canada and the US.
The tragedies are also good to take time to realize the constant opportunity it presents for increased disaster preparedness, standardization for construction, and planning investment into more, and better early warning systems. Extreme years like 2025 become the norm, and the safety of hill states and their neighbouring regions has to speak for itself and with immediacy.
Let’s remember this to be more, than lives and property lost to natural catastrophes. Lets create acknowledgement for the populations and planet, especially as greenhouse gas emissions begin to exceed rising viral footprints, at a time of climate injury as evident climate reality.