Yearender 2025: The Fear And Fury In The Himalayas
Snowless winters, hotter summers, followed by cloudbursts and landslides: How nature's fury upturned life in the Himalayan belt, especially J&K, this year.
Published : December 24, 2025 at 10:47 AM IST
|Updated : December 24, 2025 at 11:22 AM IST
Srinagar: As 2025 draws to a close, the barren mountains and Valleys in Kashmir have hardly had any snow except a trickle in the last few days, even though Chillai Kalan, the 40-day harshest winter period, began from December 21.
Conspicuous as they are now, the effects of climate change are for everyone to see in this Himalayan region. The largely dry, cold winters mark the culmination of nature's revolt in a year defined by weather tragedies.
For Jammu and Kashmir, 2025 wasn't just another year of climate change; it was the year the Himalayas broke under the strain of global warming, leaving a trail of devastation that claimed nearly 200 lives.
In August, hundreds of Hindu pilgrims had taken shelter in Kishtwar’s Chisoti village, the last motorable village en route to the mountainous temple of Goddess Durga (in Machail Mata village), as rains had halted their trek.
Kartar Singh Rathore took it as a routine monsoon flooding when people, witnessing the surge in floodwaters, panicked and ran for safety. For him as well as the villagers, it was a normal scene in the monsoon to see floodwaters flowing down the mountains at high speed, swelling the nullah in the deep gorge below.
"But within a wink of an eye, gushing waters brought down mountains, boulders and structures at a speed one can’t explain. It came without warning. One boulder hit a pillar of my brother’s house cum homestay and crushed it under its force. My younger brother, his wife and son died," Rathore told ETV Bharat.
Five months later, the high-altitude village is yet to overcome the grief after floods triggered by a cloudburst killed 15 villagers. As many as 66 people were killed in the catastrophe that marked the second such disaster in a month after a village was swallowed in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi in the north-western Himalayan region.
“I have never seen or heard from my forefathers about calamity in our village of this magnitude," said another villager. But he remembers a minor flood that washed away a wooden bridge connecting the village with Machail village in 2022. "Now, when a new bridge under construction was about to connect two villages, floods occurred. It left people homeless."
In the Himalayas, the changing weather patterns have put the mountainous region under extreme grip. Between January to September, according to a report of Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Down To Earth, extreme weather was recorded on 270 of the 273 days from January to September 2025, up from 255 in 2024.
These days marked by heat, cold waves, lightning, storms, heavy rain, floods and landslides claimed 4,064 lives and 58,982 animals, destroyed 99,533 houses and hit 9.47 million hectares of crops, the report said.
Of them, the Himalayan states that made headlines for their devastating monsoon events saw the highest 1,342 human casualties.
Irfan Rashid, assistant professor at the University of Kashmir's geoinformatics and earth sciences, attributes these events to the ‘temperature warming’ over the last four decades in the Himalayan region.
“The prevalent and observed temperature warming has not only changed the form of precipitation but also impacted the pressure systems and atmospheric circulation patterns,” he said. “This has resulted in erratic weather patterns like erratic and untimely snowfall in November, the above normal temperatures, the spring heatwaves, etc. Even the currently depleted precipitation is part of this changing weather pattern.”
These changes impact the cryosphere (glaciers and snow persistence) and ultimately affect stream flows, Rashid added. “Since our agriculture is dependent on streamflow, the depleted discharge in streams forces land system changes (agriculture conversion),” he added.
In the Himalayan valleys, the agricultural sector, which is the mainstay of the economy, is reeling as the losses have surged steeply in the last four years. At least 9.47 million hectares of cropped land were affected this year, up fourfold from 1.84 million hectares in 2022.
For a region such as Jammu and Kashmir, where horticulture and agriculture provide a livelihood for nearly 70 percent of the population, climate change has emerged as a threat to food security.
The economic ripple effects are already being felt, with farmers reporting losses running in thousands of crores. The erratic weather led to a significant drop in the quality and quantity of the apple harvest, resulting in a significant price drop.
A box of 15-kilogram delicious apples was sold at a mere Rs 250-300 against the price of Rs 800-1000 sold last year in Asia’s largest fresh fruit and vegetable mandi in Delhi.
“It could not cover labour charges,” said an apple orchardist, Parvez Ahmad, in south Kashmir’s Anantnag. Apart from prolonged dry spells and heatwaves, he attributes the losses to the closure of the Srinagar-Jammu national highway that connects Kashmir with the rest of the country. The road was shut for about a month after flash floods washed away portions of the mountainous highway, halting the transportation of consignments and leaving people stranded.
Between August and September, the Jammu and Kashmir official data showed that the floods and highway shutdown incurred a loss of Rs 209 crore to the horticulture and agriculture sectors.
But growers' bodies such as All Valley Fruit Growers and Dealers Association Kashmir (AVFGDAK) dispute the claim, estimating the losses at Rs 2,000 crore. The Rs 15000-crore horticulture sector, which is the mainstay of the economy, sustains 7.5 lakh families in the region.
The association's president, Bashir Ahmad Bashir, said that horticulture took the worst brunt as the heatwave caused diseases and scab in orchards, deteriorating quality and quantity.
"It incurred mounting losses. Growers have fallen into debt, and we are seeking the government's attention towards our sector,” he said.
The Union Territory government is looking at the central government for the financial package, as Jammu and Kashmir is not self-sufficient, an official said.
On the floor of the Rajya Sabha, National Conference (NC) Member of Parliament Chowdry Ramzan demanded a special relief package from the central government for the agriculture and horticulture sectors.
He conceded with Bashir that mounting losses have left many orchardists unable to repay their Kisan Credit Card loans, pushing them into deep debt and financial uncertainty. The senior National Conference leader warned that without timely relief, the situation could further worsen for thousands of farmers dependent on horticulture and allied activities.
In the apple bowl of Kashmir’s Shopian, known for juicy and crunchy fruit, Rashid Ahmad feels the impact under his feet as he works in 20 kanal apple orchards.
“Manual tilling is impossible now. A shovel does not work on black-brown soil as the earth has turned hard like a solid rock due to lack of moisture,” said the 34-year-old, hailing from a family of farmers. "This is a signal of the impending losses awaiting us next season."
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