Himalaya flood: Rescuers recover more bodies, death toll rises to 50

Himalayan Rescuers found more bodies from the site of a flash flood in a Himalayan region of northern India on Sunday, a week after the disaster struck.

9 more bodies were found, bringing the death toll to 50 with more than 150 people still missing.

Rescuers are using heavy digging machinery in race to free dozens of dam construction workers trapped in an underground tunnel connected to a hydroelectric project being built by the government-owned National Thermal Power Corporation.

“We have not lost all hope yet. We hope to find more survivors,” the top government official in the region, Swati Bhadoriya said.

Uttarakhand is prone to flash floods and landslides. The disaster has prompted calls by environmental groups for a review of power projects in the ecologically sensitive mountains.

A team of scientists are investigating if a piece of a Himalayan glacier did fall into water and trigger the flood.

MTO/Reuters