Justice
Why the Kashmir Floods Have Been So Deadly
The disaster highlights the cost of careless urban planning and environmental mismanagement.
Junaid Rashid finally got his father on the phone today. For the past six days, he had no idea if his family in Srinagar city was safe. Rashid's family and an estimated 600,000 others have been stranded in India's flooded Kashmir region for the past week.
"In my 30 years, I haven't seen a flood like this," says Rashid, a doctor based in Delhi. An estimated 200 people have lost their lives on the Indian side of the contested border (another 250 or more are estimated to have died on the Pakistani side). As rescue operations continue, the number is only going up.