People try to stop water flowing through the gate of a flood channel after incessant rains in Srinagar April 7, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Ismail

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Six people were killed and two were reported missing in India’s northern region of Kashmir on Friday, after heavy rain and snowfall swept the region, setting off avalanches and turning mountain rivers into raging torrents.

Helicopters were deployed to rescue people cut off by flash floods that revived memories of 2014, when the Jhelum River flowing through the region’s main city, Srinagar, burst its banks, swamping homes and killing 200 people.

Snowfalls triggered multiple avalanches, defense spokesman Rajesh Kalia told Reuters.

“A post in Batalik sector was buried,” he added. “Two out of five soldiers have been rescued. A rescue operation for three soldiers was in progress and three bodies have been recovered.”

In the Poonch region, an Indian Air Force helicopter was guided by a soldier holding a flare toward a group of villagers stranded on the far bank of a river. They climbed a rope ladder into the craft, which then flew them to safety.

Rajiv Pandey, senior superintendent of police in Poonch, said 17 people were evacuated from the area.

In Srinagar, the summer capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, some low-lying districts along the Jhelum were swamped but residents said the river was starting to recede.

“We are relieved as the water level is receding and the rains are reducing,” said one resident. “We are praying that rain should stop.” </s> Two of the three soldiers trapped in an avalanche in Jammu and Kashmir’s Batalik were found dead on Friday while the third one is still missing.

Multiple avalanches tore through Batalik sector on Thursday as the Valley reeled under unprecedented rain and snow that swelled rivers and inundated vast areas.

Two civilians are also missing after a vehicle they were travelling in skidded of the road and fell into a stream in Anantnag district. Five other passengers were rescued.

The administration declared floods in Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar where the Jhelum’s water level rose alarmingly and shut education institutions for three days, officials said.

Kashmir experienced rare snowfall in April with vast areas blanketed in white due to the freak weather phenomemon.

An army spokesperson said the heavy snowfall triggered multiple avalanches, burying one post in the Batalik sector.

Two out of five trapped soldiers misisng were rescued on Thursday. Specially trained and equipped avalanche rescue teams have been deployed for the operations in the area.

Kashmir has seen devastating avalanches this year with fourteen soldiers swept away in Gurez, Bandipora and an army major in Ganderbal on January 25. Five more soldiers buried under snow on January 28 were pulled out alive in the Macchil sector of Kupwara. They, however, succumbed to their injuries two days later.

Incessant rains also forced closure of the arterial Jammu-Srinagar National Highway as the rains triggered landslides and shooting stones at several places along the 300-km road.

The Jhelum river, which had breached its banks in 2014, originates in south Kashmir’s Sangam area of Anantnag district. Then its passes through capital Srinagar and Asham in Bandipora before crossing into Pakistan.

Police also established emergency helplines across the valley.

“Police have put its men on high alert to meet any possible challenge and eventuality and has established emergency control rooms in all the districts of the valley to provide help to the people in need,” a police spokesman said.

According to the met department, Srinagar received 98mm rainfall, Kokernag 106mm in Kokernag and tourist resort Pahalgam 87 mm since Wednesday morning. </s> At least eight people killed Monday in rain-related incidents in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. 

 

 In the wake of heavy rains, a 'red alert' was issued in Punjab where educational institutes have been ordered to remain closed on Tuesday. Schools have been closed in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir and in most places of Himachal Pradesh. 



 Heavy rains led to landslides which blocked the roads to Badrinath, Kedarnath and Yamunotri, affecting the Chardham Yatra, while traffic snarrled in the national capital due to waterlogging following heavy rains.



 The Punjab government has asked district authorities to maintain vigil to avert any untoward situation due to heavy rains, an official said.



 Punjab has been witnessing widespread rain for the last two days and the downpour continued Monday, prompting state authorities to review preparations to tackle flood-like situations.



 Incessant rains in Punjab and Haryana could cause damage to kharif crops and dip in their yield, farm experts said.



 In Haryana's Ambala, a 45-year-old man died when the roof of his home collapsed due to heavy rains, police said.



 Torrential rains trigerred flash floods in Himachal Pradesh, sweeping away a man and a girl in Kangra and Kullu districts, respectively. A "high alert" has been sounded for Kullu district.

 

Several houses were also swept away in flash floods as the Beas is flowing at a dangerous level, HP Forest Minister Govind Singh Thakur said, cautioning people against going near rivers and nullahs.



 An Indian Air Force team had rescued, with the help of a chopper, 21 people stranded due to flash floods at Dobi in Kullu district in the last 48 hours.

 

BJP MP from Hamirpur Anurag Thakur said, "So far, 126 roads have been affected by landslides triggered by rains and news of the loss of lives are too pouring in from many places."



 People residing in low-lying areas, especially in Kangra, Chamba, Kullu and Mandi districts, are being evacuated, officials said. 

 

In Chamba, the Ravi river is still flowing at a dangerous level and people are being evacuated from low-lying areas by the administration since Sunday, Superintendent of Police Monica Bhutunguru said.

 

Issuing a flood warning, the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) said excess water from the Pong Dam would be released due to high-pattern inflows in the Pong reservoir due to heavy rain in catchment areas.

 

In Uttarakhand, most of the places including state capital Dehradun received showers with around 45 rural roads blocked in these districts, the state emergency operation centre said.

 

Heavy rains lashed several parts of the national capital, causing waterlogging and traffic snarls on major intersections in the city.

 

In Jammu and Kashmir, five members of a family, including three minors, were killed Monday when their house was buried under debris after a landslide in the Doda district, while 29 people stranded in Kathua district after flash floods were rescued.



 Doda and other parts of Jammu region have been lashed by incessant rain over the past two days. 



 "A total of 29 persons, including six women and 10 children, were rescued from various flood-hit areas of Kathua district during overnight operations," a police officer said. 

 

With improvement in weather, authorities Monday morning opened the 270-km Jammu-Srinagar national highway for traffic.

 

Multiple landslides and shooting stones from a hillock along the highway between Ramban and Udhampur districts had blocked the arterial road since Sunday morning. 

 

According to the Meterological department, heavy to very heavy rain is expected at isolated places in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, western Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh. </s> Incessant rain and snowfall in Kashmir in the past few days has resulted in the swelling of rivers and streams, posing flood threat to the residential areas. The Jhelum river, which remained in spate for the second consecutive day on Friday, started receding in south Kashmir and Srinagar, bringing relief to people.

Please Wait while comments are loading... </s> On a chilly Thursday, Kashmiris found that the morning had brought waterlogged homes, streets and alleys, and a Jhelum river filled to the brim after three days of incessant and heavy rain. Many people had been up all night, watching for the water to reach their porches and making arrangements to evacuate in a hurry. It was a traumatic reminder, especially for those living near the river bank, of the devastating floods of September 2014 that had left over 300 people dead and displaced thousands.

As a flood alert was sounded, panicked resident started moving to the upper floors of their homes or to areas with a lower chance of flooding. Fortunately, the rain let up on Friday and the weather cleared. The immediate danger was over. But the fear remains even now.

Ever since winter gave way to spring, residents of Kashmir have been plagued by bad weather, rain and untimely snow. This led to a flood-like situation on Thursday.

On the Jhelum embankment near Lal Chowk in Srinagar, scores of people stood watching the swollen river, taking photographs and circulating them along with weather updates on WhatsApp groups and other social media platforms. An app gave out hourly updates of water levels issued by the Irrigation and Flood Control Department.

On Thursday night, the Jhelum touched its highest gauge level of 21.7 feet at the Sangam in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district and of 19.1 feet at Ram Munshi Bagh in Srinagar. In 2014, the river had crossed 33 feet at the Sangam and 23 feet at Ram Munshi Bagh.

The rising waters caused panic all around. In the outskirts of Srinagar, young men carrying children could be seen leaving their homes as the water came up to their knees. Shopkeepers in the Lal Chowk area rushed around trying to save as much of their goods as possible.

A mother in Srinagar’s Peer Bagh shifted her two children to the non-flood-prone Zakura area 15 km away, and came back to shift her belongings to the upper floors, praying silently all the time. She said she had stayed up all night watching the front porch for signs of approaching water.

On the Jhelum, too, houseboat owners spent a sleepless night adjusting their moorings as the water levels rose. A rise of six inches meant tightening the ropes to prevent the boats from being swept away, they said.

The rain continued to fall through the day, with a brief interval in the late evening. And as night fell, there was panic again as the houseboats rose to within a few feet of the level of the embankment.

Muneer Bhat, a resident of Srinagar’s Tulsi Bagh, had also been watching the water levels rise but it wasn’t until a panicked call from a friend at 11 am that he began to worry. “Flood alert has been issued,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

In the next few hours, Bhat had cleared out most of the ground floor of his house. Cans of oil, bags of rice and other essentials had been placed haphazardly in a corner of a higher floor of the building. “A lot had been spent on renovations after the 2014 flood,” he said.

As the flood alert was sounded, the city’s municipal commissioner told the Valley’s sole private FM radio station that the drainage systems were burdened with double the amount of water they could drain. The severity of the waterlogging was evident when vehicles fell into dug-up patches of the road near Jehangir Chowk.

The Jammu and Kashmir government, on its part, announced that all schools and colleges in Kashmir would remain closed until Monday.

However, Sonam Lotus, director of the meteorological department, said that while people needed to remain vigilant, a “flood of the magnitude of 2014 won’t arise”. The weather will improve, he told a news gathering agency.

Proving his forecast right, the sun came out on Friday. But it brought reports of the death of a passenger of a taxi that had skidded off the road and fallen into the Jhelum in Anantnag the day before. The driver is still missing. The bodies of three soldiers trapped in an avalanche in the Batalik sector in Ladakh were also recovered. The region had witnessed multiple avalanches on Thursday.

In Srinagar, the water levels were slowly receding but the fear of flooding and more rain remained. Kashmiris have lived with this fear for a few years now. It surfaced in March-April 2015 too, when the Valley received heavy rainfall and the Jhelum had risen dangerously.

Residents said the slow pace of dredging and encroachments on the river banks were to blame for rivers and tributaries breaching their banks. </s> TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Head of Iran’s Crisis Management Organization confirmed the deaths of over 40 people in severe flooding triggered by torrential rains in four northwestern provinces of the country.

Esmaeel Najjar said the bodies of 40 people who died in the flash floods have been found.

Heavy rains started on Friday. The surging waters caused rivers to burst their banks and swept away cars and flooded houses in the provinces of East and West Azarbaijan, Kurdistan and Zanjan.

Najjar said in Azar Shahr in East Azarbaijan 17 people in 7 cars went missing on Friday after their cars were carried away by floodwaters, adding that the bodies of all 17 have been found by rescue teams.

Eighteen villagers in Chenar, near the town of Ajabshir, East Azarbaijan, were also killed and two remain missing, he said.

According to the official, 12 houses were completely destroyed in the village, too. </s> Ten soldiers were killed while several others are missing after two avalanches in Gurez Sector of Kashmir, an army official said on Thursday.

 An avalanche hit an army camp in Gurez sector of Bandipora district near the Line of Control last evening in which several soldiers were trapped, the army official said.

 He said rescue operations were launched and seven soldiers including a Junior Commissioned Officer were saved. “Bodies of three soldiers were retrieved his morning,” he said.

 The official said another avalanche hit a patrol party which was on its way to a post in Gurez sector last evening.

 “Rescue teams were able to retrieve three bodies from the spot of the incident while some soldiers are still missing,” Colonel Rajesh Kalia said.

 He said the exact number of missing soldiers was not yet known as heavy snowfall was hampering ongoing operations.

 On Wednesday, an officer was killed in an avalanche at Sonamarg in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district while four members of a family died in another avalanche in Gurez sector.

 Authorities have issued a high danger avalanche warning in hilly parts of snow-bound Kashmir valley in view of fresh snowfall which has been going on intermittently for past three days.

 Meanwhile, heavy snowfall and freezing weather has killed 27 children, all under the age of five, in a remote district in northern Afghanistan, officials said Thursday, with fears the toll could rise.

 Roads in Darzaab in northern Jawzjan province were blocked by 50 centimetres of snow, cutting off access for villagers in the area to medical care as temperatures plunged to -10 degrees Celsius.

 “Unfortunately we have 27 children killed due to heavy snowfall and freezing weather,” district governor Rahmatullah Hashar told media, saying the deaths had occurred over the last two or three days.—Agencies </s> At least 10 soldiers were killed and four others were still missing after two avalanches hit an army post and a patrol in Jammu and Kashmir’s Bandipora district, officials said on Thursday.

According to police officials in Bandipora, seven soldiers were rescued from the debris of the avalanches in the Gurez sector of the Line of Control (LoC), bodies of 10 soldiers were found while four others were still missing.

“Rescue operation is on to trace the missing soldiers,” a police officer said. Earlier, the army in a statement said it lost six soldiers in the two avalanches in Gurez that occurred on Wednesday and Thursday.

“Rescue operations were immediately launched in extreme bad weather amid heavy snowfall,” the statement added. A Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) and six soldiers were rescued after avalanches hit their post on Wednesday, while bodies of three soldiers were retrieved on Thursday morning, it said.

An army officer was killed and four soldiers were injured on Wednesday in that avalanche which hit the army post in Sonamarg in Ganderbal district. </s> TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian state TV is reporting that flash floods triggered by heavy rains have killed 17 people and left 20 missing in the country's northwest.

The Saturday report quotes Director General of Crisis Management in East Azarbaijan province, Khalil Saei, as saying: "Rescue teams have found 17 dead bodies after flash floods triggered by heavy rains in the cities of Ajabshir and Azarshahr."

Saei added that Red Crescent workers, air ambulances, police and army forces have been deployed from the early hours of the incident for providing aid."

In September, at least 10 people were killed in flash flooding in Tehran and Hormozgan provinces.
Six people are killed and two are missing after the Jhelum River in Kashmir overflows following heavy rain and snowfall.