More than 3,000 people are still missing following floods and landslides which have ravaged northern India's Uttarakhand state, officials have said, amid fears the death toll could touch 10,000.
Rescue specialists were continuing to scour the devastated area on Monday, though there was little hope that the missing would now be found alive.
Meanwhile the state's top official, Chief Minister Vijay Bahaguna, announced a ban on construction along river banks amid concerns that unchecked development had contributed to the flash flooding and landslides.
So far around 1000 people, many of them pilgrims and tourists, have been officially confirmed dead after torrential monsoon rains hit the Himalayan region on June 15.
Indian army soldiers rescue a woman at Pindari Glacier, in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand
But at the weekend state assembly speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal said the casualty figure in the catastrophe-ridden region could cross 10,000, as many people had been washed away by swollen rivers whilst others lay buried deep under rubble and mud.
“As per my information and bodies seen by people I can say the (fatality) figure can cross the 10,000 mark” he declared.
The figure was rejected as “guess work” by Mr Bahuguna, though he conceded that the exact death toll might never be known.
Over the past week rescue workers have recovered hundreds of bodies in rivers downstream from the flood zone underlining the near impossibility of determining the death toll.
The extent of the unfolding tragedy is poignantly brought home by distraught relatives clutching photographs of missing family members waiting in the state capital Dehra Dun for news of their loved ones.
Each passing day only confirms their worst fears.
Over 100,000 people have been rescued over the past fortnight by paramilitary and military personnel operating helicopter rescue missions high up in the mountains.
Meanwhile, medical teams are widely deployed to assess the risks to public health after warnings of an outbreak of disease due to contamination from hundreds of bodies found in rivers.
To prevent the outbreak of disease, mass cremations of these bodies were being carried out in the flood-affected areas.
Tons of firewood for the funeral pyres has been airlifted across the state by army and air force helicopters whilst forensic teams worked feverishly collecting DNA samples of the dead to help identify them later.
State health authorities are also scattering tons of bleaching power to disinfect large areas.
Raging rivers swept away houses, buildings and even entire townships and villages in the state and severed communication links across large areas of Uttarakhand last month.
The unseasonal rains triggered landslides and floods in the Ganges river and its many tributaries.
Known as the "Land of the Gods" for its revered Hindu shrines, Uttarakhand is a popular summer vacation destination for tourists seeking to escape the stifling heat of the plains.
It is also a popular religious pilgrimage site with four temple towns perched high up in the Himalayas.
Visitors normally return before the onset of the monsoon rains in July.
But the unprecedented downpour this year - over 400 per cent more than the normal average - caught hundreds of thousands of tourists, pilgrims and local residents by surprise.
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