Inside the night flash floods and landslides devastated Rajouri and Poonch
I. Ahmed Wani
The rain that fell on the night of July 18 began the way it always does in these border districts: steady, familiar monsoon rain. By midnight it had turned into something else. Cloudbursts and flash floods tore through Rajouri and Poonch in the hours before dawn on July 19, killing at least twelve people, leaving several missing, and burying entire homes, in some cases entire families, under mud and rock.
Officials have announced relief. Rescue teams are still digging. In village after village, the loss is being counted one name at a time.
Lower Murrah: A Father Steps Outside
In Lower Murrah, a village in Poonch’s Surankote tehsil, Mohammad Latief left his three-storey house shortly after midnight to move his vehicle to higher ground. He had been gone only moments when he heard a deep, rolling rumble from the mountains above, the same sound survivors across both districts would later describe.
When he turned around, his house was no longer there.
A torrent of mud, boulders and water had struck the building, burying eight members of his family. Among the dead was his two-year-old son, Sofian Yasar, whose body was recovered from the debris hours later. Neighbours who reached the site found Latief digging into the earth with his bare hands, calling out names into the darkness.
“I went out for two minutes,” he told rescuers. “Two minutes. And the mountain took everything.”
A few kilometres away in Sangla, the home of Abdul Hameed was swept from its foundations so completely that little trace of it remained. Hameed, his wife Sharifa Begum, their daughter Areeba and his sister Manira Begum were carried away by the floodwaters. Only two bodies have been recovered. Relatives return to the swollen stream each evening and watch the water.
Mothers, Children, and Houses That Fell in Seconds
In Noonabandi, 28-year-old Nazia Kousar was putting her three children to bed when the walls of her home gave way. She was killed instantly. Her husband, Mohammad Hafiz, and their children, the youngest two years old and the eldest six, were pulled from the rubble injured but alive. Hafiz has told those around him that his wife was singing a lullaby moments before the house came down.
In Marhote, a young girl named Iram was swept away by a stream that villagers say had never before posed a threat. Her body was found hours later against the rocks downstream.
In Sanglani-Surankote, 22-year-old Shahzaib Ahmad died when his house collapsed. The body of an unidentified woman was recovered near the Dhundak Lathoong bridge. In Haveli tehsil, half a dozen houses crumbled, killing one person and critically injuring others.
The dead are counted in numbers. They are mourned by name.
Rajouri Town: The River Breaks Through
While the hills of Poonch collapsed, Rajouri town was drowning. At around 2:30 a.m., the Darhali River breached its flood protection wall near Bela Colony. Water surged into the town’s new bus stand, lifting and scattering dozens of vehicles, cars, trucks and taxis, or burying them under layers of silt.
The body of a woman identified as Pinky was later recovered from the river. Another woman remains missing. Near Abdullah Bridge, more than fifty families in a slum settlement fled barefoot into the rain as water poured through their doorways. Near Tariq Bridge, police responded to one distress call after another, wading into waist-deep currents in the dark to pull residents to safety.
By morning, Ashiq Hussain stood before the ruins of his grocery shop. His stock, sacks of rice, cartons of oil, the savings of a working life, was gone. “I don’t know how I will feed my family now,” he said. “We have lost everything in one night.”
In a temporary shelter, Shabnam Begum held her youngest son. “The water entered so fast we couldn’t even take our documents or clothes,” she said. “We ran barefoot. Today we have no home. But at least we are alive.”
No Warning, Only a Roar
The accounts converge on the same sequence: a thunder-like roar from the mountains, the power failing, total darkness, then the sound of houses collapsing one after another.
“There was no warning,” said Mohammad Yousuf, a resident of a Poonch village. “When we stepped outside, water was rushing towards us. We had only a few moments to wake our children and run. Another minute and we would not have survived.”
In that chaos, residents mounted the first rescues, long before official teams could reach cut-off villages. Young men like Riaz Ahmad tied ropes around their waists and entered the torrent. They formed human chains, carried children on their shoulders, and ferried the elderly on doors torn from ruined homes.
“Nobody asked who belonged to which village,” Riaz said. “Everyone helped everyone.”
Elsewhere, elderly Abdul Rashid stood at the bare patch of earth where his ancestral home had been. “A house can be rebuilt,” he said. “But the memories buried under this mud can never be recovered.”
The Morning After
Daylight revealed the scale of the destruction. Fields ready for harvest lay under thick sludge. Dead livestock floated in the floodwater. Vehicles were found wedged between rocks hundreds of metres from where they had been parked. Roads had disappeared. Power lines hung slack over the wreckage. Hundreds of families crowded into schools and community halls.
The administrative response came quickly. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah cut short a visit to Delhi and returned to the Union Territory. Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha ordered the full deployment of the Army, the State Disaster Response Force, police and volunteers. Union Home Minister Amit Shah spoke to both leaders and assured central assistance. An ex-gratia payment of ₹6 lakh was announced for the families of the dead. The Amarnath Yatra and other pilgrimages were suspended.
In Lower Murrah, Sangla, Noonabandi and the flooded lanes of Rajouri, the announcements feel far away. What survivors ask for is simpler and harder: their missing returned, a roof that will not vanish in the next rain, an end to the fear.
What the Water Left Behind
Rain continued into July 20, slowing rescue operations. Families refuse to re-enter damaged houses. Children flinch at thunder. Mothers hold their infants closer through the night.
The mountains will turn green again. The rivers will settle. But in the relief shelters each evening, someone still calls the names of the missing toward the water. Sofian. Areeba. Sharifa. Manira.
Until the river answers, the hills keep their silence. And the people keep their grief.
