Prime Minister Narendra Modi has told his fellow Indians that "nature has been testing us" after cloudbursts caused flash flooding that killed hundreds of people across the north of the country and in neighbouring Pakistan.

What causes cloudbursts?

Usually defined as more than 10cm (roughly 4 inches) of rainfall within an hour over an area less than 30 sq km (11.6 square miles), cloudbursts are caused by a combination of factors characterised by high humidity and low pressure.

When warm, moist air is forced upwards after, for example, encountering a hill or mountain, it cools and condenses, creating large, dense clouds. Once these become over-saturated they burst, releasing their rainfall all at once.

"Sudden and violent", these intense deluges behave effectively like "a rain bomb", sa

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