Officials said the deaths occurred in separate incidents affecting four families. Five bodies were recovered in Jodh Ghati, a remote village in the Rajbagh area, and two others were found in Janglote. The children killed were between two and 15 years old, according to district information reported by the Hindustan Times. Several people were injured; Union minister Jitendra Singh said six were flown to hospital at Mamoon in neighbouring Punjab.
The incidents began between about 3.30am and 4am. A family was feared trapped when a landslide struck Juthana Jodh, while sudden flooding hit Jodh Ghati and nearby locations. Water and debris severed the approach to the village, complicating the first phase of the response. Police advance teams and personnel from the State Disaster Response Force joined residents in rescue work, and the army was placed on standby.
District police chief Shobhit Saxena cautioned that he could not yet confirm whether the rainfall met the formal definition of a cloudburst. The India Meteorological Department defines that phenomenon as more than 100 millimetres of rain in one hour. What officials could verify was that intense rain had produced flash flooding and landslides with fatal consequences.
Water levels had risen sharply in the Sahar Khad and Ujh rivers after several days of rain. Flooding affected an industrial area, a school campus and a police station in Janglote, while roads and railway tracks were also disrupted. Landslides were reported in other villages, though the supplied accounts did not identify major damage there.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha expressed sorrow over the deaths. Sinha briefed federal Home Minister Amit Shah, who said national authorities would support rescue operations. Civil administrators, military units and paramilitary personnel were monitoring conditions, Singh said.
The Kathua emergency came only days after a much deadlier flash flood in Kishtwar district, where security forces and disaster-response agencies were still carrying out relief work. The proximity of the two disasters placed additional strain on responders and highlighted the danger of intense monsoon rainfall in mountainous terrain. In Kathua, the immediate priorities remained locating anyone unaccounted for, treating survivors and restoring safe access to communities cut off by water, debris and damaged transport links. Assessments of the affected villages continued alongside the search effort.
