At least 56 dead and dozens missing after flash flooding in Indian Himalayas

At least 56 people have been killed after flash flooding hit a remote, mountainous village in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Estimates suggest at least 80 people are still missing in the devastated Himalayan village of Chasoti, in the Jammu and Kashmir region, according to local officials. Rescue teams have brought 300 people to safety, they added.

Chasoti, around 85 miles (136km) northeast of Jammu, is the last village accessible to vehicles on the route of an annual Hindu pilgrimage to a mountainous shrine, the Machail Mata temple. The devastating floods swept away the main community kitchen, where more than 200 pilgrims were gathered, as well as dozens of vehicles and motorbikes, officials said.

Abdul Majeed Bichoo, a local resident from a neighbouring village, said he witnessed the bodies of eight people being pulled out from under the mud. The 75-year-old said Chasoti had become a "sight of complete devastation from all sides".

"It was heartbreaking and an unbearable sight," he continued. "I have not seen this kind of destruction of life and property in my life." India's deputy minister for science and technology, Jitendra Singh, said the floods were triggered by torrential rains.

Sudden, intense downpours over small areas - known as cloudbursts - are increasingly common in India's Himalayan regions, which are prone to flash floods and landslides. Last week, floodwater crashed through an entire Himalayan village in India's Uttarakhand state.

Television footage showed pilgrims in Chasoti crying in fear as water flooded the village. At least 50 of the rescued people were badly injured and were being treated in local hospitals, local official Susheel Kumar Sharma said.

Officials said the Hindu pilgrimage, which began in July and was scheduled to end on 5 September, has been suspended. More rescue teams were on the way to the area, they added.

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Search and rescue operations are underway," Mr Kumar said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said "the situation is being monitored closely" and offered his prayers to "all those affected by the cloudburst and flooding." Cloudbursts can cause intense flooding and landslides, and have increased in recent years, partly due to climate change.

Damage from the storms has also been exacerbated by unplanned development in mountain regions..