Five Indian Army personnel remain missing after a flash flood tore through the Pasu Pani Army Camp in Arunachal Pradesh’s Dibang Valley district on Friday evening, August 14, triggered by heavy monsoon rainfall.
According to the State Emergency Operations Centre, the flash flood struck at around 4:30 pm and washed away two shelters belonging to the 5th Grenadiers regiment at the camp, located under the Mipi Circle in Dibang Valley. Seven personnel were caught in the deluge — two managed to reach safety, while five remain unaccounted for.
The missing soldiers have been identified as Havildar Upendar and Army personnel Kundan, Vinod, Aditya and Samunda.
The Search Effort
The Army moved quickly to mount a rescue operation, deploying two search-and-rescue teams from the 5th Grenadiers to the site. They have since been joined by reinforcements from multiple agencies:
- The 58th Battalion of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)
- The 62 RCC of the General Reserve Engineer Force (GREF)
- Arunachal Pradesh Police
- Local volunteers
- A State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) team dispatched from Pasighat toward Anini to reinforce the operation
Search teams pushed into the affected area starting Saturday morning, though the terrain and continuing rainfall are expected to complicate the effort.
A Second Disaster the Same Night
The flash flood was not an isolated tragedy. Hours later, a landslide struck a road construction site at the Keojaring–Byaching cutting in Upper Subansiri district, burying several workers under debris. Four labourers — identified as Tadu Baki, Taji Rai, Markosh Basumatari and Babul Ali — were reported dead; one body has been recovered so far, with recovery operations ongoing for the others. Personnel from the local police station and Fire and Emergency Services from Daporijo have been mobilised to the site.
Part of a Wider Pattern of Monsoon Devastation
The twin disasters add to what has already been a punishing monsoon season for Arunachal Pradesh. A state disaster management report released earlier this month put the state’s flood-and-landslide death toll for the season at 10, with widespread infrastructure damage recorded across the state — including damage to 235 roads, 40 bridges, 75 culverts, over 800 electric poles, 66 irrigation projects and 41 schools, among other losses.
The incident also echoes a string of recent flash-flood disasters that have struck Indian Army installations in the Himalayan region in recent years, underscoring the risks faced by troops stationed in remote, high-altitude terrain during the monsoon months. Search and rescue operations for the five missing soldiers in Dibang Valley remain ongoing.
