Himachal saw its wettest August in seventy-six years, with 431.3 mm rainfall—sixty-eight per cent above normal.
Punjab’s floods left two and a half lakh people affected and nearly three lakh acres submerged.
Experts blame unchecked construction, dam mismanagement, and defunct canals for turning heavy rains into man-made disasters.
Himachal Pradesh’s wettest August in 76 years has claimed at least 161 lives and damaged properties worth Rs 3,000 crore. Cloudbursts and relentless rains caused flash floods, which washed away villages, bridges, highways and forest stretches.
Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu said the scale and magnitude of the damage is much higher than the 2023 floods that deeply hurt the state. His government has declared the entire state a disaster-affected area. He was quick to blame climate change and global warming for the disaster.
There, indeed, are telltale signs of changing weather patterns. Increasing intensity and frequency of cloudburst events is one of them. This August, some districts in Himachal, such as Kullu, recorded 165 per cent higher rainfall. Overall, excess rainfall in the state was 68 per cent.
Districts like Lahaul and Spiti, which hardly used to witness monsoon rains till two decades ago, experienced 10 per cent higher rainfall.
The flash floods have left a trail of destruction in the Seraj area of Mandi and parts of districts like Kinnaur, Kullu, and Chamba—devastating road infrastructure, bridges, water supplies, and electricity, snapping the entire communication network in the hill areas. Several stretches of the National Highway have been completely washed away due to landslides.
The neighbouring state of Punjab, meanwhile, has a 2.50 lakh population severely hit by the flood fury in 12 major districts, especially its border belt.
In Himachal, the rain data for August 2025 reveals that the state recorded 431.3 mm of rainfall, the ninth-highest since 1901 and the heaviest precipitation for the month in 76 years. The last time the state saw comparable rainfall in August was in 1949, while the record for the month stands at 542.4 mm (1927).
Punjab, on the other hand, experienced 74 per cent surplus rain this monsoon. Against the normal rainfall of 146.2 mm, the state recorded 253.7 mm of rainfall. Last week was particularly bad in terms of rainfall recorded in the shortest period. This excess rainfall came after the state received deficient rainfall for a quarter of a century.
They highlight how Punjab’s canal system has become defunct due to flawed or absent dredging. Silt and waste, unregulated construction and the building of haphazard embankments had blocked the natural flows. As no dredging happened for several seasons to clear mud, sand, silt, and debris from the bottom, they quickly overflowed.
Santosh Singh, a retired professor of history at Gurdaspur, explains that Punjab’s vulnerability stems from multiple factors. The state, receiving runoff from Himachal’s hill catchments and crisscrossed by five rivers, is no stranger to floods. The presence of three major dams—Bhakra, Pong, and Ranjit Sagar—has further complicated matters, serving at times as a protective water buffer but also as a potential threat when mismanaged.
