Srinagar, Jul 19: Until Saturday evening, the streams flowing through the hills of Rajouri and Poonch were little more than lifelines—watering fields, sustaining livestock, and quietly winding their way through villages. By midnight, they had transformed into raging torrents, swallowing homes, roads, vehicles and, tragically, lives.
For the people of these twin border districts, it was not merely another spell of monsoon rain. It was a night they say will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
The rain began as it often does in the hills—steady, persistent and unremarkable. Families finished dinner, children drifted off to sleep and shopkeepers pulled down their shutters. Then came an unfamiliar roar. Within minutes, cloudbursts high in the mountains unleashed walls of water that surged through narrow valleys with terrifying force. Seasonal nallahs overflowed in seconds, carrying with them uprooted trees, boulders, vehicles and entire sections of houses.
“There was no warning,” recalled Mohammad Yousuf, a resident of a village in Poonch. “We heard a loud thunder-like sound coming from the mountains. When we stepped outside, all we could see was water rushing towards us. We had only a few moments to wake our children and run. Another minute and we would not have survived.”
As floodwaters raced through villages, electricity snapped, plunging entire localities into darkness. The only sounds piercing the night were cries for help, collapsing buildings and the relentless roar of water.
For Shabnam Begum, the flood stole everything except her family.
“The water entered our house so fast that we couldn’t even collect our documents or clothes. We ran barefoot carrying our children. Today we don’t have a home, but at least we are alive,” she said, clutching her youngest son inside a temporary shelter.
Across Rajouri and Poonch, similar stories echoed from one devastated village to another.
Homes built over generations lay reduced to piles of timber, stone and twisted tin sheets. Vehicles were found wedged between rocks hundreds of metres away. Fields ready for harvest disappeared beneath thick layers of mud, while dead livestock lay scattered across flood-ravaged farmlands.
Standing beside what remained of his grocery shop, Ashiq Hussain struggled to hold back tears.
“This shop was my life’s savings. Every sack of rice, every carton, every shelf has been washed away. I don’t know how I will feed my family now. We have lost everything in one night.”
In village after village, survivors described the same terrifying scene—people running in every direction, parents carrying sleeping children on their shoulders, elderly residents being helped across waist-deep water and neighbours screaming out the names of loved ones lost in the darkness.
Yet amid the devastation emerged extraordinary stories of courage.
Before rescue teams could reach many remote villages, it was ordinary residents who became the first responders.
Young men tied ropes around their waists and stepped into the torrent to pull trapped families to safety. Others used tractors, makeshift rafts and even doors ripped from damaged houses to ferry children and elderly people across flooded stretches.
Riaz Ahmad, who joined the rescue efforts, said fear disappeared the moment people realised lives were at stake.
“Nobody asked who belonged to which village or community. Everyone helped everyone. We formed human chains in the water, rescued children, carried elderly people on our backs and searched for those trapped under debris. Those moments reminded us what humanity truly means.”
Women gathered in schools and community halls converted into temporary shelters, comforting children who had spent the night listening to the roar of floodwaters.
Many had escaped with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing.
Household utensils, school books, wedding albums, family photographs and treasured keepsakes lay buried beneath mud or scattered across fields.
For elderly residents, the emotional loss was even greater.
“This was the house where my father was born and where my children grew up,” said Abdul Rashid, staring silently at the empty patch where his home once stood.
“A house can be rebuilt with time. But the memories buried under this mud can never be recovered.”
As rescue teams continued searching for the missing, families waited anxiously near swollen streams, hoping against hope that their loved ones would return.
The tragedy has also dealt a severe blow to livelihoods. Standing crops, orchards and livestock—the backbone of the local rural economy—have been wiped out in many villages. Small shopkeepers, labourers and farmers now face the daunting task of rebuilding their lives from scratch.
Even as the floodwaters gradually recede, fear continues to grip the region. With the Meteorological Department warning of more heavy rainfall over the coming days, many families are reluctant to return to damaged homes, spending nights in schools, community halls and relief camps.
For the people of Rajouri and Poonch, the scars of this disaster will linger long after roads are rebuilt and houses reconstructed. As one grieving villager quietly summed it up while watching excavators clear the debris: “The floods didn’t just take our homes. They took a part of our lives with them.”
