Several buildings were destroyed on a landslide in the town of Devprayag, in Uttarakhand State, India, on Tuesday 11 May 2021. The landslide was triggered by heavy rainfall, which caused a rise in the waters of the Shanta River, which rapidly undermined the banks below the buildings, causing the slope on which they were situated to collapse. The buildings are described as having been municipal and commercial in nature, rather than residential, and were evacuated safely before their collapse, so that nobody was injured in the event.
Uttarakhand is prone to extreme weather events, generally connected to its heavy seasonal monsoon, which typically lasts from July to September. However, this event appears to have been unrelated to the annual monsoon, but instead to have been caused by a cloudburst (isolated extreme rainfall event) which caused similar events across a wide area, although none of them as serious as that in Devprayag. A number of buildings were damaged in other parts of Uttarakhand, including the Kainchi Dham shrine in Nainital District, although there are no reports of anybody being injured in any of these events.
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