• Rescue operations were underway to trace over 45 people missing following flash floods triggered by cloudbursts in three districts of Himachal Pradesh.

• Cloudbursts in Nirmand, Sainj and Malana areas in Kullu, Padhar in Mandi and Rampur in Shimla districts had left five people dead and over 45 missing.

• The maximum damage was caused in Samej area of Rampur subdivision of Shimla district as a cloudburst near Shrikhand Mahadev triggered flash floods in Sarpara, Ganvi and Kurban nallahs.

What is cloudburst?

• Cyclones and cloudbursts cause flash floods and lead to huge losses. 

• Due to peculiar climatic conditions, some parts of the country experience sudden unprecedented heavy rain known as cloudbursts.

• Cloudburst is a natural and common phenomenon in the Himalayas.

• Generally, cloudburst refers to particularly heavy precipitation in a short period of time over a limited geographical area. 

• It is often defined as more than 100 mm per hour rainfall within a limited geographical area of a few square kilometres. 

• It is just as if the whole cloud has suddenly precipitated its moisture at once, as though it had been pricked and suddenly collapsed. 

• It is very difficult to predict the cloudbursts due to its very small scale in space and time. 

• Cloudbursts do occur at plains, however, mountainous regions are more prone to cloud bursts due to orography.

• Hilly areas in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, the northern areas of West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura and the coastal areas in the states of West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Gujarat and Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakhshadweep are more prone to such phenomena.

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