By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
Four people were killed and more than 130 rescued as a cloudburst on Tuesday triggered calamitous floods in Khirgaurd nullah that swept away several hotels and houses at Dharali town on the Gangotri highway in Uttarkashi district of the disaster-prone Uttarakhand.
In a press statement, the Uttarakhand government said more than 130 people have been rescued from Dharali and nearby areas in in a multi-agency operation by the army, ITBP, NDRF and SDRF.
An unspecified number of people are also missing in the disaster which occurred due to the heavy to very heavy rains that pounded the hill state during the past 48 hours. There is confusion over the number of missing persons. Media reports are claiming that 50-100 persons are missing in the disaster.
District Magistrate Uttarkashi Prashant Arya confirmed the death of four people in the floods that brought heavy boulders and mudslides.
Within ten minutes after the floods, nearly 150 army jawans from the nearby Harsil camp arrived at the scene of the disaster to launch the rescue and relief operation swiftly. However, the rescue operation was hampered due to heavy rains in the area amid fears of more cloudbursts. Besides Dharali, two more cloudbursts occurred – one at Sukhitop and other at Harsil areas in Uttarkashi district within a short span of one hour. However, there was no reports of any loss of life or damage in the two cloudbursts.
After the disaster, a large number of hotels and houses got buried in the boulders and mudslides.
Few viral videos showed people screaming and running helter-skelter on the Gangotri highway seconds before a big wall of the flash floods struck Dharali, a small town, situated only 18 kms before Gangotri temple area in the Garhwal Himalayas. Several hotels and houses were swept away as the floods tore through them.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami also said the cloudburst near Dharali has caused heavy damage. Dhami rushed back to Dehradun after his tour to Tirupati area in Andhra Pradesh and said the rescue teams of Army, SDRF, NDRF and local administration were working on war-footing in the area. He expressed concern over the disaster caused by the cloudburst following heavy rains during the past 48 hours in the hill state.
An army officer after posting videos of the damage caused by the cloudburst said the disaster occurred around 1345 hours and the search for the missing persons is continuing.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah expressed grief and said the centre would provide all possible help for the relief and rescue operations.
Caption: A scene after the cloudburst at Dharali on Monday
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