Kashmir death toll rises to 132

INDIA: Rescuers resumed their search Sunday for survivors from flash floods which killed over 130 people and left hundreds missing in a part of Indian Kashmir favoured by adventure sports tourists.

Tourists - who had travelled to the Himalayan area of Ladakh for whitewater rafting and other sports - joined soldiers and Buddhist monks in the operation, spending the night pulling out dead and injured from flattened buildings.

"Our total so far is 132 people dead and it could rise. We have many people who are missing," said a senior police official told AFP in Leh, the main town in the majority Buddhist Ladakh area. More than 400 people were injured and thousands left homeless in the disaster, which came as India's neighbour Pakistan was swamped by its worst-ever floods with millions displaced and at least 1,600 dead. A further 150 people were unaccounted for in Choglumsar, the worst-hit village on the outskirts of Leh, said the police officer, asking not to be identified. Rescuers wading through knee-deep mud were also looking for more than 100 labourers missing from Shyong village, the officer said, while at least 25 soldiers were missing after the floods washed away several army posts. Leh, Sunday, AFP