Rescue teams on Wednesday recovered six bodies even as police fear the toll could be much higher as at least 46 people remained missing after Tuesday's cloudburst which swept away a few houses in a Himachal Pradesh village.
"Six bodies have been recovered until noon by rescue teams from the debris in Ghanvi village in Shimla district," a senior police official said in Shimla.
"The death toll could be between 50 and 60 persons," he said.
Villagers and authorities fear that some bodies are still buried in the landslide while others might have been washed away in the nearby Sutlej river.
Ten schoolchildren who had come to the village to take part in an Independence Day function at a school were also among the dead as their school building was washed away, police said.
Twenty-six of the missing have been identified while efforts were on to identify the others.
Rescue work by villagers and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) were hampered as Ghanvi is at least two hours' walk from the nearest motorable road at Rampur Bushahr.