cloudburst

A cloudburst had caused a flash flood early in the morning, a local official said.

Experts say this is increasingly happening in the mountainous regions where massive moisture-laden clouds hit the hills, pouring huge amounts of rain very quickly in a small area - a phenomenon that is known as cloudburst.

Extreme weather events such as cloudbursts are hard to predict in advance.

Uttarakhand's chief minister and other officials initially said the flash floods were caused by a cloudburst, but India's weather department has not confirmed this.

Officials say more than 100 people are missing after a cloudburst triggered devastating flash floods in India's northern state of Uttarakhand.