This archive report was first published on 13 August 2019.
Published on August 13, 2019, monsoon rains brought widespread destruction to India and Pakistan, leaving thousands displaced and dozens dead.
Heavy rainfall in the south Indian state of Kerala displaced nearly 290,000 people from their homes, with 76 killed, 32 injured, and 58 missing, according to local government reports. The death toll is expected to increase.
Indian military forces were deployed to perform rescue missions, with troops using tree limbs to haul a wheelchair-bound man to safety and providing dinghies to ferry civilians to relief camps.
In Kavalappara, Kerala, a mudslide caused by heavy rains wiped away an entire village, leaving only three people alive. Rescue workers found bodies pinned down by felled trees or buried deep in the mud.
Rescue worker Pratheesh K.P. described the scene as the worst flooding he had seen in his seven years on the job, with bodies carried away by the mudslide found over a kilometer from where their homes once stood.
"We think there are 30 children buried in the mud," Pratheesh K.P. said.
Meanwhile, in Pakistan, the southern city of Karachi was inundated by floods, with at least 11 people killed and residents posting videos online showing submerged roads and neighborhoods flooded with rainwater.
Neighborhood streets turned into muddy rivers, with garbage and sewage flowing past people's houses. Three young men were electrocuted by the current from an electricity pole submerged in the floodwater.
The floods left a cluster of people on a causeway fearing for their lives, with the government posting footage of a hazardous rescue operation using a construction crane to hoist civilians to safety.
Karachi's flooding quickly became a point of political contention, with various parties trading blame for the city's haphazard urban planning and creaking infrastructure.
