Rescuers said a lack of earth-moving machinery was also impeding work in Himachal Pradesh state's Kulu valley where Wednesday's flash flood roared through a hydropower project workers' camp.

"Not a single body was recovered (Thursday) by 3:00 pm (0930 GMT), as there is no machinery available at the disaster spot to extract debris and huge rocks," said Kirpa Ram Negi, a paramilitary commander engaged in the rescue work.

An eyewitness painted a grim picture of the site, 26 kilometres (16 miles) from Kulu town.

"The makeshift shanties have been washed away by the torrent. Trees, large boulders and heaps of mud and slush are left in the workers' colony at the edge of the hydropower project," the witness told AFP by telephone.

Rescue workers have put the death toll at around 100, but state legislator Khemi Ram said it could reach 150 "as bodies could still be buried in the debris or washed away downstream by the Parvati river."

The official toll released by Himachal police chief A.K. Puri, however, was much lower.

"In all 35 persons are feared killed with 19 bodies recovered so far and 50 others injured," said Puri, adding that at least 450 people were involved in the rescue.

"Rescue operations are being hampered by the intermittent rains in Kulu... There has been a complete disruption of road links and this is adding to our problems."

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Vir Bhadra Singh, who was to visit the site later Thursday, said 230 workers were asleep in their shanties when the skies opened up.

The Meterological Department said from New Delhi it could not rule out another cloudburst like Wednesday's killer deluge.

Meanwhile, in India's inundated northeastern Assam state, officials reported another two drownings Thursday in the inundated Dhemaji district, taking the local death toll to 30 since a second wave of monsoon floods which began June 27.