The casualty toll was unknown, but Indian soldiers spotted at least six bodies, believed to be Chinese, in a usually uninhabited region near the Chinese border, Major General R.S. Gill told the Press Trust of India.

The floods came after the Parechu river in China's Himalayan region of Tibet rose up to 15 metres (50 feet) Sunday, destroying infrastructure downstream in the Sutlej river of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.

Several hundred tourists were among those trapped without electricity and cut off from the rest of India in the state's eastern Kinnaur region, said senior state government official Amandeep Garg.

"Three (hundred) to 400 tourists, including foreigners, are stranded at the Kinnaur region's Sangla, Kalpa and Yangthang districts," he said.

An army helicopter airlifted 14 tourists stranded at Reokong Peo in Kinnaur district, Revenue Minister Sar Mahajan said, UNI news agency reported.

"Of the 14 people, eight are foreigners. We have also received a request from 140 other tourists in Kinnaur district to be airlifted," he said.

Garg said a stretch of the Hindustan-Tibet road had been washed away.

"It is difficult to send relief materials as the road is the only one connecting the Kinnaur region to the rest of the state," he said.

Army troops and paramilitary border police were coordinating the relief operation and 30 air force helicopters were on standby, with rain and fog hampering the rescue operations.

The flood came when a Tibetan lake that was formed by rubble from a landslide bursts its banks, sending a torrent of water down into India, where it destroyed a national highway, bridges and houses.

"We have estimated a loss of 8 billion rupees (186 million dollars)," Sat

Mahajan, a state government minister, told reporters in Shimla.

Nearly 5,000 people were evacuated Sunday along a 200 kilometre (124 mile) stretch of the Sutlej.

The sluice gates to the 1,500 megawatt Nathpa hydro power project downstream on the Sutlej were partially opened to ease pressure from the fast-flowing river on the embankments.

Late Monday federal Home Secretary V.K. Duggal, speaking in New Delhi, said the Sutlej river waters were receding, and the Press Trust of India reported that some people had started returning to their homes.

Five years ago floods along the Sutlej killed nearly 150 people.

In August last year China warned that the lake in Tibet's Ali prefecture could burst through the landslide debris and release a torrent of water. The threat was averted as the lake froze in the winter.

Officials said snow melt during an unusually hot summer had probably caused the breaching of the lake.

India's federal government was trying to obtain satellite pictures of the Tibetan side to ascertain the cause and extent of the problem.

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