Uttarakhand, the mountainous northern state that hosts Dharali, has been devastated by cloudbursts before. A June 2013 cloudburst killed over 6,000 people in Uttarakhand and surrounding states, becoming the country's worst natural disaster in ten years. In 2021, flash flooding triggered by a cloudburst killed over 200.

As the sun set over the flood-ravaged Himalayan village of Dharali with 190 people rescued and two bodies recovered on Wednesday, fears mounted for those still trapped under the massive river of sludge that buried scores of houses,