More than 550 people are now known to have been killed in flash floods and landslides in northern India amid warnings the death toll may rise sharply.
It comes almost a week after earlier than expected monsoon rains caused devastation which has been described as unprecedented in the Himalayan region.
Raging rivers swept away houses, buildings and even entire villages. Bridges and narrow roads leading to pilgrimage towns high in the mountains were destroyed.
The country's home minister Sushilkumar Shinde said 34,000 people have been evacuated so far and another 50,000 were stranded in the region.
Helicopters and thousands of soldiers have been deployed in the rescue effort.
The air force dropped paratroopers, food and medicine for those trapped in up to 100 towns and villages cut off since Sunday in the state of Uttrakhand.
A woman cries as her husband is placed on a stretcher Many of them are Hindu pilgrims who were visiting four shrines in the area.
Rescuers found 40 bodies in the River Ganges near the holy city of Haridwar, and in the muddy, broken earth left by landslides.
Vijay Bahuguna, chief minister of Uttrakhand, told CNN-IBN: "556 bodies have been noticed by the army... either floating or buried in slush. This kind of disaster has never happened in Himalayan history."
A man searches along the banks of the Yamuna River Mr Bahguna said the eventual death toll would be in the hundreds and he attacked the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for not issuing adequate warning ahead of the heavy rains.
"The IMD warning was not clear enough," he said.
Uttrakhand spokesman Amit Chandola said the rescue operation centred on evacuating nearly 27,000 people trapped in the worst-hit Kedarnath temple area.
This is one of the holiest Hindu temples dedicated to Lord Shiva, located atop the Garhwal Himalayan range.
A man unlocks the door of his flooded home The temple escaped major damage, but debris covered the area around it and television images showed the bodies of pilgrims strewn around the area.
Soldiers and other workers re-opened dozens of roads by building makeshift bridges, as the evacuation moved forward, Mr Chandola said.
More than 2,000 vehicles carrying stranded Hindu pilgrims have moved out of the area since late Thursday, he added.
Rakesh Sharma, another state official, had said the death toll might reach the thousands but the exact figure would not be known until the entire region is checked.
Yashpal Arya, the state's relief minister, told AFP: "So many are missing across the state. The numbers of the dead could rise sharply in the days to come."
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