Flash floods have swept through a Himalayan village in northern India, killing at least four people and leaving more than 50 missing, according to officials, who warned that the toll could rise further.

Videos broadcast on Indian media on Tuesday showed a terrifying surge of muddy water sweeping away buildings in Uttarakhand state’s Dharali village.

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Several people could be seen running before being engulfed by the dark waves of debris that uprooted entire multistorey buildings. A wide swath of the village was swamped by deep debris. In places, the mud lapped at the rooftops of houses.

Four people were killed and many more have been rescued so far, Uttarkashi district administrator Prashant Arya told local media.

“A massive mudslide struck Dharali village in the Kheer Gad area near Harsil, triggering a sudden flow of debris and water through the settlement,” the Indian Army said in a post on X.

Rescue teams were deployed “on a war footing” to the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, said state Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami in a statement on Tuesday, adding: “We are doing everything possible to save lives and provide relief.”

Teams from the army and disaster response forces reached the area, local authorities said, with workers trying to rescue people trapped under debris and sludge.

India’s National Disaster Management Authority said it requested three helicopters from the federal government to assist in the rescue and relief operations, as rescuers struggled to access the remote terrain.

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“Luckily, most of the people were at a fair in a safe location,” said a disaster official who asked not to be named, since he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Images released by the army, taken from the site after the main torrent of water had gone, showed a river of slow-moving mud.

Red warning issued

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences to those “affected by this tragedy… No stone is being left unturned in providing assistance to the people,” he said in a statement posted on social media.

The India Meteorological Department issued a red alert warning for the area, and recorded “extremely heavy” rainfall of about 21cm (8in) in isolated parts of Uttarakhand. It also forecast more heavy rains in the region in the coming days.

Authorities have asked schools to remain closed in several districts, including Dehradun and Haridwar cities.

Sudden, intense downpours over small areas known as cloudbursts have become increasingly common in Uttarakhand, a region prone to flash floods and landslides during the monsoon season from June to September. Cloudbursts have the potential to wreak havoc by causing intense flooding and landslides, affecting thousands of people in the mountainous regions.

Experts say cloudbursts have increased in recent years partly due to climate change, while damage from the storms also has increased because of unplanned development in mountain regions.

More than 6,000 people died and 4,500 villages were affected when a similar cloudburst devastated Uttarakhand state in 2013.

A 2023 report by Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development found that glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates across the Hindu Kush and Himalayan Mountain ranges. The study found that at least 200 of the more than 2,000 glacial lakes in the region are at risk of overflowing, which can cause catastrophic damage downstream.

The UN’s World Meteorological Organization said last year that increasingly intense floods and droughts are a “distress signal” of what is to come, as climate change makes the planet’s water cycle ever more unpredictable.