Dozens dead after mudslides hit Kashmir region

FLOODWATERS have hit also India's restive Kashmir region, with 500 people missing after flash floods sent massive mudslides down remote desert mountainsides. At least 132 people are dead, with five foreign tourists among that number.

Thousands of army, police and paramilitary soldiers were clearing roads to reach isolated villages in the Ladakh region cut off by powerful thunderstorms which hit on Friday, state police Chief Kuldeep Khoda said.

The injured were being treated at an army hospital and several makeshift clinics in and around Leh, the worst-hit town, Khoda said.

Rescuers still had not reached about 5,000 people in Choglamsar, a village on Leh's outskirts, because of mudslides blocking the road, police officer Nawang Tsering said.

Mohammed Deen Khan, a social activist who tried to reach the village on Saturday, said the mud was about 15 feet high in some places. He said authorities were facing a shortage of bulldozers and heavy earth movers.

About 100 stranded foreign tourists, mostly Europeans, were evacuated from Pang village northeast of Leh.

August is peak tourist season in Ladakh, about 280 miles east of Kashmir's capital Srinagar.