© AFPA woman tearfully watches the floodwaters rise menacingly in a Srinagar neighbourhood on Monday.
Another deluge - months after last year's September floods that had left hundreds dead and a trail of devastation.
The formal announcement of the flood came around 7am, after the water level in the Jhelum crossed the 18ft danger mark at Srinagar's Ram Munshi Bagh and touched 19.5ft on the gauge.
A let-up in the rain gave people a breather but the forecast from the weather office, which predicted intermittent showers over the next three days followed by a heavy downpour on April 3, meant the respite would be brief.
Earlier, around 3.30 in the morning, hell broke loose in Laden, a village in central Kashmir's Budgam district, when two houses on the edge of a hillock collapsed under tonnes of mud, burying all 16 residents.
Budgam sub-divisional magistrate Aijaz Ahmad said rescuers had recovered six bodies, including that of a newborn. Four of the dead were women. "There are no chances of survival of the remaining 10," he said.
Among the dead and missing, 11 were from one family.
Officials said hundreds of local people and police and other security force personnel were trying to retrieve the bodies. "It is not possible to deploy heavy machinery to the spot because of its inaccessibility. A makeshift road has been built to help people reach the spot," an official said, adding the land under the two houses had caved in and sunk them around 70ft below.
Wailing relatives have rushed to the village but the silence of one man mirrored the despair. "The head of one of the two families was not at home when the tragedy struck. He is back in the village but is speechless," said an official.
Some good news trickled in from Poonch district in Jammu, where a bold operation by forces helped rescue 32 people trapped on a raised land in the middle of a river.
A locality in Srinagar's Bemina, which had faced the brunt of last year's floods, was under water today after a breach in an embankment. The ground floor of Sher-e-Kashmir hospital at Bemina was also submerged, prompting the administration to shift patients elsewhere.
People across Kashmir had been resigned to fresh floods after heavy snowfall and rain through much of March had left water levels high in streams and lakes.
Memories of the September deluge - that left 300 people dead - still fresh, hundreds of shopkeepers had shifted their wares to safer areas, although many are still hoping the situation won't be as bad this time.
Official sources said the National Disaster Response Force had dispatched eight fully equipped teams to the Valley while the air force has placed its resources on standby. "Two Mi-17 helicopters each at Jammu, Udhampur and Srinagar. One each Cheetah helicopter of the IAF is on standby at Srinagar and Jammu to be part of rescue and relief operations. The IAF has assured the civil administration of all possible assistance in this time of crisis," said Col S.D. Goswami, the defence spokesperson at the Northern Command headquarters.
Chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed urged people not to panic. "Shelters have been made functional.... Adequate number of sandbags are available and are being used in critical embankments so that there is no breach," he said.
The central government has granted Rs 200 crore as immediate relief while Prime Minister Narendra Modi rushed minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to Kashmir for an on-the-spot assessment.
Comment: In 2013, in the state of Bihar, 6 million were affected by extreme flooding. 6 months ago, in 2014, 600 individuals died due to flooding in Kashmir. And global weather patterns are only getting worse in 2015: