Srinagar (India), 14 August (LaPresse/AP) – The death toll from flash floods caused by torrential rains that hit the mountain village of Chositi in the Jammu and Kashmir region of Indian Kashmir has risen to at least 44, with 50 people missing and 200 rescued. A disaster management official, Mohammed Irshad, said rescue teams had combed through the devastated village. At least 50 of those rescued, many of whom were pulled from a stream under mud and debris, were seriously injured and taken to local hospitals, a local official said. Sudden and intense rainfall over small areas, known as “cloudbursts”, are increasingly common in India's Himalayan regions, which are prone to flooding and landslides. India's Deputy Minister for Science and Technology, Jitendra Singh, said today's floods were triggered by a cloudburst in the Chositi area. Chositi is a remote Himalayan village in the Kishtwar district of Kashmir and is the last village accessible to motor vehicles along the route of an annual Hindu pilgrimage to a mountain shrine.
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