11 Yrs After Fatal Floods, Kashmir Is Hit Again And Remains Unprepared

On the intervening night of September 3 and 4, Mohammad Ismail Dar was fast asleep with his wife and two children at their home in Pampore, south Kashmir, when his phone buzzed at 3:45 a.m. It was his nephew calling.

“My nephew told me an embankment of the Jhelum river had breached and water was rushing towards our home,” Dar recalled. Half awake, the family rushed to shift essential items upstairs. “Within two hours, the ground floor was submerged in five feet of water. Our fridge, washing machine, geyser, flooring, and other items were destroyed.”

For Dar, the scene was a chilling reminder of September 2014, when the Jhelum overflowed its banks and flooded vast swathes of Kashmir. That year, Pampore was one of the worst-hit towns. “In 2014, the ground floor of my house was underwater for more than 10 days. The government had then assured that preventive measures, such as strengthening embankments and dredging the Jhelum, would be implemented. But nothing much has changed. Eleven years later, just a few days of rainfall is enough to throw us into panic,” he said.

Since August 14, Jammu and Kashmir has been lashed by intermittent rainfall. Flash floods and landslides in the Jammu region have claimed over 150 lives since then. In the Valley, several villages were inundated, causing damage to homes, paddy fields, and orchards.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) data indicates that Kashmir received above-normal rainfall between August 22 and September 4. Between August 22 and 28, the Valley recorded 43.82 mm of rainfall, nearly triple the normal 15.59 mm, a departure of 181%. The following week, from August 29 to September 4, rainfall reached 54.56 mm, exceeding the normal of 15.52 mm by a staggering 251%.

The central government has constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee to assess the damages.

The valley remains vulnerable

Whenever the water level in the Jhelum rises, panic spreads among residents, still haunted by the 2014 floods that killed nearly 300 people, damaged 254,000 private structures, wrecked public infrastructure worth over ₹65 billion, and rendered thousands homeless.

“People here are still mentally scarred,” said Omar Ahmad, a resident of Rajbagh, Srinagar, one of the worst-hit localities in 2014. “Any news of water level crossing the danger mark makes us restless. We cannot afford that trauma again.”

Floods are not new to Kashmir. Records indicate that a major flood occurred on July 21, 1893. More floods followed in 1903, 1929, 1948, 1950, 1957, 1959, 1992, 1996, 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014.

However, experts say the frequency has increased significantly over the past decade. Over the last decade, the water level has risen above the danger mark at least seven times, according to official figures from the Irrigation and Flood Control Department, Jammu & Kashmir, creating flood-like situations in various parts of Jammu & Kashmir and indicating rising flood threats in the region.

Independent weather forecaster Faizan Arif highlights the increasing frequency of flood-like events. “What used to be rare is now recurrent, overwhelming both communities and infrastructure,” he told Mongabay India. “It’s not just changing rainfall patterns, but also the lack of preparedness and resilience on the ground.”

He suggests a two-pronged approach: upgrading early warning systems and flood management infrastructure, while also tackling unplanned urbanisation and encroachments on floodplains.

Following the 2014 flood, the Central Water Commission (CWC) highlighted the high flood vulnerability of the Kashmir Valley, primarily due to its geographical characteristics. It noted that the Valley is bowl-shaped, with elevations rising from approximately 1600 m to 5300 m on three sides, while the flat plain at 1600 m hinders the rapid drainage of rainwater from the higher reaches. “The safe carrying capacity of the river Jhelum between Sangam and Srinagar is about 900 cumec (31700 cusec). The flood of September 2014 was about three times more than the capacity of the river Jhelum,” the CWC report said.

After 2014, authorities announced measures to increase the carrying capacity of the Jhelum, from 31,800 cusecs to 61,000 cusecs, through dredging and strengthening embankments, as stated by Javed Rana, Irrigation and Flood Control Minister, Jammu & Kashmir, to Mongabay India.

​The minister further informed that Phase I had been completed, raising the capacity to 41,000 cusecs. But Phase II, funded under the Prime Minister’s Development Package, remains pending. It was supposed to further increase capacity by 20,000 cusecs through the dredging of the river and flood spill channels.

No dredging of the Jhelum or its flood channels has taken place since March 2020, Rana said.

Following the 2014 disaster, the Central Water Commission (CWC) was tasked with drafting a comprehensive flood management plan. It recommended not only dredging but also the construction of a new 80-km-long flood channel from south to north Kashmir, at an estimated cost of ₹180–200 billion, according to media reports. A decade later, the project remains on paper.

Environmentalists argue that human activities have exacerbated Kashmir’s flood vulnerability.

The Environmental Policy Group (EPG), a Kashmir-based advocacy organisation, says decades of deforestation, unregulated land use, and rampant riverbed mining have stripped Kashmir of its natural defenses.

“The denudation of catchment areas, bulldozing of mountains for roads, and mechanised mining have reduced the Valley’s ability to absorb rainfall,” said EPG Convener Faiz Bakshi. “Encroachments on riverbanks and wetlands have turned critical flood buffers into concrete zones that flush water directly into the Jhelum.”

“Wetlands, once natural sponges, have shrunk dramatically. Hokersar wetland has been extensively encroached. The Ramsar-notified Haigam and Shallabugh wetlands have degraded, Mirgund Lake has shrunk, and Narakara Nambal has nearly disappeared under construction. Wular Lake, once a vast absorption basin, has lost a third of its storage capacity to siltation and encroachments. As the Jhelum slows into the lake, sediment accumulates, further reducing the river’s carrying capacity. The failure to restore Jhelum’s capacity, wetlands, and flood channels has left people at constant risk. Every time it rains for a day or two, lives, livelihoods, and mental health are at stake,” Bakshi said.

The CWC report, following the 2014 flood, has also highlighted similar concerns that increasing construction in low-lying areas due to urbanisation has contributed to the crisis, as these areas were previously able to absorb floodwater. “The situation in Jhelum Basin has got further aggravated due to siltation and encroachments/development of various waterways like river, lakes, marshy land, etc, resulting in limited carrying capacity of Jhelum and water bodies,” it has said.

Leaders trade blame over flood negligence

The renewed flood scare has triggered political sparring. Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, who returned to power last year, has blamed his predecessors for negligence.

“If dredging of the Jhelum and flood channels had been carried out, this situation would not have arisen,” Abdullah, while visiting the flood-affected areas on September 4, told reporters. “Rainfall is in Allah’s hands, but rainfall alone should not cause such devastation. Negligence of the past 11 years is to blame.”

Abdullah, who was the chief minister during the 2014 floods, pointed to subsequent governments—first the PDP-BJP coalition (2015–18), then the Governor’s and Lieutenant Governor’s rule—for failing to act. He said that his administration would ensure people no longer live in fear or park cars on flyovers to save them from floods.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Yusuf Tarigami, Chairman of the Jammu &Kashmir Legislative Committee on Environment, while talking to the media on September 5, said that the Jhelum’s capacity of 63,000 cusecs in 1962 has nearly halved due to siltation.

“Restoring this requires a massive, eco-friendly dredging operation across the river, tributaries, and receiving basins,” he said.

“There have been huge violations of the flood manuals, especially in the areas that have been declared as flood-prone. The World Bank reportedly granted $250 million for the Jhelum and Tawi Recovery Projects following the devastating floods of 2014. How this amount has been spent with details must be put in the public domain,” he demanded.

For residents like Mohammad Ismail Dar, however, the immediate concern is survival. “Every time it rains, we are terrified,” he said. “It feels like the government has abandoned us to face floods on our own.”