SRINAGAR: Rains, cloudbursts, and landslides are walloping Jammu and Kashmir with the region's mountainous area of Kishtwar being the first one to witness nature’s wrath on Thursday (August 14) seeing its 70 people dead, hundreds injured and as many missing.
And while it rained hard on Tuesday (August 26) with river Jhelum in Srinagar swelling to alarming levels, 31-year-old Nazra Mushtaq, a bride to be, sat anxiously in the corner of her room in city’s Karan Nagar area.
Yet, it wasn’t the weather that worried her but the signal on her phone which disappeared, and her fixed-line internet which stopped working.
Like many people in Kashmir, Mushtaq thought the communication outage was politically motivated.
The memories of earlier communication blackouts, like the one in 2016 following the killing of prominent militant commander Burhan Wani, when phones and internet services were partially snapped for nearly 133 days.
In August of 2019 following the revocation of Article 370, communication was fully disrupted for nearly six months in the valley with no internet, phones or mobile connectivity. Internet connectivity was fully restored after 18 months.
The communication lines in Kashmir were down for several weeks during the 2014 floods.
All the preparations for her upcoming wedding would be in vain, feared Mushtaq as she stared at the gifts, dowry, and other purchases worth lakhs made for her big day, which is scheduled for the last week of September.
While Mushtaq fretted in her room, people out on the roads rushed to reach home even as many shopkeepers in Lal Chowk and adjacent areas called it a day earlier than usual.
Rumours that “Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik may be hanged” have been the talk of the town for the past couple of weeks and as Kashmir was cut off from the rest of the world, people thought the outage was deliberate and politically linked.
In May 2022, Malik was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Special NIA Court in Delhi. Recently, NIA has petitioned the Delhi High Court to enhance his life term to death penalty. The matter is still pending in the court.
By the late evening on Tuesday, only some people with a particular network were able to make calls. “But the calls didn’t last more than a few minutes, making us re-dial several times before it reconnected,” said nearly a dozen people Kashmir Times spoke with. This reporter faced the same issue on his network.
As the dinner time approached and Nazra Mushtaq sat with her family, she took a sigh of relief. The news anchor on the television announced that the communication outage was a result of inclement weather that washed away several major roads including some portions of the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway-the only link connecting Kashmir to the rest of the world.
The near-total collapse of communication caused by heavy rains and landslides leaving millions cut off from phone and internet services have led to serious criticism of the communication infrastructure in Jammu and Kashmir.
This outage, caused by widespread damage to optical fibres as per officials, mirrors the devastating communication blackout during the 2014 Kashmir floods, which left the region isolated for weeks.
Despite the lessons from 2014, the administration’s failure to implement robust backup communication systems has amplified the crisis, hindering rescue operations and creating panic among residents.
The rescue operations were affected, officials admit. “Communication is a very important factor in rescue operations,” said DySP SDRF Srinagar, Muzaffar Khan.
Khan said they were not able to receive distress calls or any feedback and that the breakdown of communication also delayed reaction time.
“Internet is everything in today’s time, and no internet means that we are unable to monitor the situation as it should be done,” Khan told the Kashmir Times.
Although the SDRF officials use alternative communication methods like satellite phones, radio devices to remain operational, the unavailability of the internet disrupts communication with the SDRF team on the ground and the public as well, said Khan.
“The internet is a must, there is no alternative to it,” Khan asserted.
The rescue operations are usually conducted jointly by different agencies like SDRF, Army, NDRF. However, the communication outage didn’t affect the coordination between these organisations, “because we are in touch through a control room,” said Khan.
“But overall communication with people and our men on ground was affected largely. We couldn’t understand the situation accurately,” said the DySP.
Between August 26 and 28, SDRF rescued 14 families from Kursoo Rajbagh-a low lying, flood prone area in Srinagar, 22 families from Karshangaam in Anantnag, six nomadic families from Sirigufwara, also in Anantnag and one family in Kaimoh where a house collapsed, Khan said.
To make the rescue operations more robust, Khan suggested induction of drones for area mapping, surveillance of affected areas, and foolproof communication systems.
Although 90% of communication was restored within 24 hours after August 26 rains and floods, there is still work in progress to repair the remaining damage, said a Junior Telecom Officer from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) J&K, who is also incharge of managing the repairing operations, requesting anonymity because he isn’t authorised to speak to the media.
At the time of publication of this report, rains continued to batter Jammu and Kashmir, further damaging the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway and also affecting network services on Wednesday (September 03, 2025) morning.
As per the Junior Telecom Officer, the fibre cables were damaged when the roads were washed away by rains and landslides, affecting communication across Kashmir. However, there was little impact in Jammu region.
“Communication was affected only in some parts of Jammu and the government’s order to TSPs (Telecom Service Providers) to activate ICR (Intra Circle Roaming) helped to mitigate services in those areas,” said the officer.
The officer suggested laying cables through an alternative route to Kashmir. “Cables should be spread through Mughal Road, so if one road is damaged, the other provides continued service,” he said.
To keep the communication going during situations like natural disasters, the officer said the government must deploy COW sites or Cell on Wheels or Mobile Cell Sites, which are temporary mobile communications towers deployed on trailers or trucks.
Regarding the establishment of satellite phones and internet services, the officer said, it will probably take years to get going with the satellite internet.
“There are reports of prominent tech owner Elon Musk starting his satellite internet operations in India, but that is still at the policy level on the national stage,” said the officer.
About the satellite phones, the officer said that there is less possibility of giving satellite phone connections to the local population.
“One because it is costly, nearly Rs 18 per minute, and then, J&K is a high security zone, and I don’t think the government would allow people here to use that service,” he added.
At the moment, the District Magistrate level offices have been given the satellite phones, “and that too was a hectic process. We needed to get NoCs (Non-objection Certificates) from MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) and other high offices to do that,” said the officer.
Further, to make the communications systems in Jammu and Kashmir more reliable, the officer said, “a ring infrastructure for telecommunications must also be in place. So, if one side of the system is damaged, the other remains working.”
Asked if the plans to strengthen the communications systems in the region are discussed, the officer said that they hold a review meeting every six months. “And the latest one was held after India and Pakistan exchanged heavy fire in April this year.
“That meeting was specially held to make our communications system stronger,” the officer said.
During the recent rains, emergency teams worked round the clock to restore basic connectivity. However, the lack of backup like satellite phones and portable towers remains a serious gap. These must be institutionalised so that relief work is not disrupted in the future, said JKNC Chief Spokesperson Tanvir Sadiq.
Sadiq said that the 2014 floods exposed the fragility of Kashmir’s communication systems. “The lessons should have been learnt to build layered backups and decentralised networks, but many of those recommendations remain unimplemented.”
He said the way forward is a threefold approach: to strengthen infrastructure, establish backup systems and empower local bodies with emergency tools.
Rumours spread fast, and in Kashmir they spread faster and the lack of communication only amplifies it.
Regarding the recent rumours, Sadiq said, timely clarifications and proactive outreach are essential to counter misinformation and reassure people.
He said the government is reviewing past shortcomings and “working on a more resilient strategy so people feel secure during the future calamities.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has warned of a wet September across the country and the government must protect and improve the communications systems in the region on a war-footing, or else, “there would be tragedies upon tragedies,” said a senior activist based in Srinagar.
The Kashmir Times reached out to Alex Donskoy, Senior Networking Engineer and a technical expert at Avante, a Cyprus based telecommunications company, about the international protocols.
"When natural disasters damage the physical network, such as underground fibre optic cables, restoring connectivity depends first on repairing that infrastructure,” Donskoy said.
“However, once the network is physically back online, robust BSS/OSS systems play a crucial role in speeding up service restoration for customers. They allow operators to quickly reconfigure services, reroute traffic, and manage customer communications in real time. In crisis situations, this means subscribers experience a faster return to normal service and operators can maintain trust even during major disruptions," he added.
Weather timeline
* On August 14, cloudbursts hit Kishtwar district in Jammu province killing nearly 70 people and injuring hundreds, washing away residential infrastructure. Over 100 people were missing, out of which many have been found.
* On August 15, flash floods created havoc in the Kangan area of Ganderbal district in Kashmir province, damaging a residential house, and agriculture fields and crops.
* On August 17 cloudbursts and rain induced landslides struck Kathua leaving seven people dead and injuring at least 11 people.
* On August 24 torrential rains pounded Jammu, Kathua and Samba, damaging vital bridges and disrupting electricity and water supply. On the same day, Jammu recorded the highest rainfall in the month of August, breaking a 99-year-old record as it received 190.4mm of rainfall.
* On August 26, 10 people died as flash floods, landslides battered Jammu. Several people were trapped under debris, some residential buildings collapsed and also the 4th bridge over river Tawi was damaged.
* As per officials, 4000 people were evacuated from low lying areas of Jammu, electricity and water supply was disrupted and the mobile and internet outage compounded the misery while the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway was also closed.
* Kashmir was yet again, disconnected from the world, both physically and virtually. J&K was in mud and mourning, a local English daily said. 100 plus villages were cut off in south Kashmir’s Bijbehara. The government's climate action plan has warned that 30% of Srinagar is at risk of flooding.
* On the intervening night of September 2 and 3, rains continued in Jammu and Kashmir as officials started to give water level alerts since Wednesday morning. Government ordered closure of all educational institutions on Wednesday and Thursday. All the exams were postponed as well.
* Many tributaries and streams including Sheshnag Nallah, Lidder Nallah, and Vaishnow Nallah in south Kashmir started to cross danger marks early Wednesday morning.
Amid the critical situation, the Flood and Irrigation Department of Kashmir directed all its officials to report on duty. District administrations and police issued helpline numbers and warned people to stay away from river bodies.
Reports from different parts of Kashmir, including Srinagar and Budgam said water had inundated residential areas. In south Kashmir’s Anantnag, there was knee deep water in residential areas in Mehendi Kadal and adjacent areas.
The inclement weather also blocked major roads even as landslides hit Rajouri area along the Pir Panjal sector.
Electric Transmission tower was damaged in Ranbir Nallah at SIDCO Lassipora while a house collapsed in Rajpora area of south Kashmir’s Pulwama.
Minister of Health Sakina Itoo directed officials to “ensure real-time alerts and to keep men and machinery ready.”
Meanwhile, administration also held a joint review meeting on flood preparedness at Police Control Room Kashmir.
All schools in Jammu division have been closed till September 5.
On Wednesday evening, Srinagar administration ordered preventive evacuations, and the Divisional Commissioner Kashmir said that the “next few hours are crucial.”
At around 8:00 PM, river Jhelum touched danger mark of 21 ft at Ram Munshi Bagh gauge, creating panic among people in Srinagar. Many people moved their belongings to upper stories or shifted to their relatives’ houses in areas less likely to be unaffected by floods.
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