Between August 1 and August 25, the town received 1,901 millimetres of rainfall
The Ganga river flowed above the danger mark for many days in August in Rishikesh. Photo: iStock For most of August 2023, Rishikesh in Uttarakhand held the record as the wettest town in the country. Between August 1 and August 25 the town received 1,901 millimetres of rainfall, according to Vineet Kumar Singh, a research scientist at the Typhoon Research Centre of Jeju National University in South Korea.
During the same period, the two wettest places in India and the world, Cherrapunji and Mawsynram, received 1,876.3 mm and 1,464 mm rainfall respectively. In the past three days, however, Cherrapunji has regained the top spot with 332 mm of rainfall, Singh added.
The extremely heavy rains in the town caused significant flooding and the Ganga river flowed above its danger mark for many days in August, threatening the people of the hill town. On August 9, a wall collapse led to the death of one person.
Apart from Rishikesh, the current southwest monsoon season has been devastating for the rest of the mountain states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh as well. In the first two weeks of July, the two states received heavy to extremely heavy rainfall due to a rare interaction between a western disturbance and a monsoon low-pressure area.
In August, most of the extreme rainfall happened due to the monsoon being in a break phase. The monsoon is said to be in a break phase when the monsoon trough, which is an extended region of low pressure that causes most of the rainfall over the country during the season, moves north of its normal position over northwest and some parts of central India.
During the break phase, rainfall pattern shifts towards the foothills of the Himalayas where there is heavy rainfall, often accompanied by cloudburst events, while the rest of the country does not receive any rain.
The monsoon was in a break phase from August 7-18 and then again August 24 onwards. August is likely to be the driest on record for the country as a whole due to the break monsoon phases in the month.
The torrential rains in the two months has led to many flash floods and landslides in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, resulting in loss of lives and massive destruction of infrastructure.
During April 1 to August 27, there have been 192 deaths in Himachal Pradesh due to floods and landslides, while in Uttarakhand the number is 81, according to data from the Disasters Management Division of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
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