Uttarakhand, the mountainous northern state that hosts Dharali, has been devastated by cloudbursts before. A June 2013 cloudburst killed over 6,000 people in Uttarakhand and surrounding states, becoming the country's worst natural disaster in ten years. In 2021, flash flooding triggered by a cloudburst killed over 200.

At least four people died and more than 50 people were missing after a flash flood washed away a village in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand on Tuesday.