A flood warning was issued as the level of the Parechu river, which flows from China's Tibet to India, rose 12 to 15 metres (40 to 50 feet) after an artificial lake formed by a landslide breached its banks, said Amandeep Garg, a senior official in the Himachal Pradesh state government.

India's federal cabinet held an emergency meeting and put 30 air force helicopters on alert for emergency rescues, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

"Nearly 5,000 people... along the 200 kilometre (124 mile) stretch of Sutlej river have been evacuated as a precautionary measure," Home Secretary V.K. Duggal told reporters in New Delhi after the meeting, the report said.

"The situation is not highly dangerous, but we have to keep a strict watch," Duggal said. "We have also informed the Chinese authorities, who have promised all necessary help."

Army and paramilitary units were also put on stand-by for any emergency relief and rescue operations, Duggal added.

Five years ago, floods along the Sutlej killed nearly 150 people and left a trail of destruction.

No injuries have been reported in the latest flooding, but Garg said in Shimla that some eight bridges were destroyed on Sutlej tributaries north of the town of Kalpa, the start of the Sutlej river valley in Himachal Pradesh.

He put the losses to property at one billion rupees (23 million dollars).

By late Sunday the waters had reached the town of Rampur -- which has a population of about 15,000 -- in the Sutlej river valley and flooded low-lying areas which had already been evacuated, a state official said.

"We have informed the Indian home ministry, just in case there is a further rise in the waters of the Sutlej and the army's help is needed," said Surjit Singh Parmar, the top official in the Himachal Pradesh state government.

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 at the time as the lake froze in the winter.

Garg said, "Although the river level will drop gradually downstream, we are taking no chances and have asked people to evacuate their homes in places close to the river banks".

He said the sluice gates to the 1,500 megawatt Nathpa hydro power project downstream on the Sutlej had been partially opened to ease water pressure on the embankments, but they were shut Saturday evening.

The shutting down of the project was causing shortages of electricity in neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana as India's northern grid suffered a shortfall of about 36 million units of electricity, an official said.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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