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.

Veer Singh and Kali Devi, both construction workers, had gone to a nearby village to buy groceries when flash floods hit their home in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. Their family – three sons, a daughter-in-law and two grandchildren – have since been missing.