A massive cloudburst in the Ghansali area of Tehri district in Uttarakhand disrupted the Char Dham Yatra on Saturday.
According to media reports, a teenager was killed after heavy rains triggered a series of cloudbursts in the region. Vipul, a 15-year-old boy, was swept away by a cloudburst in the Sarna Raunsal village, neighboring Kemra in Ghansali.
Moreover, a number of houses in the Balganga valley were damaged and several pilgrims were stranded along the way to Kedarnath.
A school has also been damaged over the area along with half a dozen villages. About twenty houses in Kemra village and fifty in the Siliara village was buried under mudslides. More than 100 animals were also buried under floods of mud and slush. However, the total damage reports are yet to arrive.
This spell of heavy rainfall has come after several months of forest fires, which destroyed nearly 4048 hectares of land in Uttarakhand. Blame it on the Western Disturbance which is moving along the western Himalayas. A trough at the lower levels is also passing through the foothills of Uttar Pradesh. The combined effect of these two weather systems will continue to give heavy showers over Uttarakhand.
Yesterday, a huge cumulonimbus cloud developed over Haryana and adjoining West Uttar Pradesh. This has given fairly widespread rain and thundershowers over the area. It had moved along the trough, towards Uttarakhand, and unleashed fair amounts of rain and thundershowers. Few cumulonimbus clouds with large convection brought intense thundershowers over many parts.
During last 24 hours, Nainital received 36 mm of rainfall, Pantnagar 35 mm, Mukteshwar 22 mm and Tehri 9 mm of rainfall.
This intense weather will continue for the next 24 hours. Thereafter, the intensity of rainfall will reduce significantly as the western Disturbance is fading away.
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