Leh, Aug 9: Rescue and relief efforts were being carried out on a war-footing in cloudburst-hit Leh region as the death toll mounted to 165 and 400 others remained missing.
 165 people have been killed of whom 150 have been identified so far, official sources said, adding the victims include a Romanian woman, 15 Nepalese nationals and two Tibetans.
 Two French nationals and a Spaniard were yet to be traced, they said.
 Sniffer dogs, which arrived here by an IAF transport aircraft, have been pressed into service to look for survivors as relief efforts by armed forces gained momentum who were taking the help of heavy duty bulldozers and other machines to clear the rubble.
 The Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), General Reserve Engineer Force (GREF), police and civilian authorities were trying hard to remove the piles of mud and slush which had buried villages in the worst-battered Choglusmar belt here as well as to restore telephone links, the sources said.
 Meanwhile, a fresh cloudburst in Kargil area on Saturday has cut off many villages.
 The IAF tried to airdrop essential items including tents and clothing in the villages affected by the cloudburst as roads were badly damaged, Tashi Tsetan, Deputy Director with the development wing of the local administration, said.
 The Air Force has been ferrying medicines, relief material and doctors here using IL-76 and AN-32 aircraft and has been flying out bodies of the victims to various places as the highways remained cutoff.
 With death and destruction all around, the miraculous survival of a three-year-old girl brought cheers to the ITBP personnel slugging it out in the tough conditions.
 Shreejal, daughter of ITBP Deputy Commandant (Engineering) Raj Kumar who was separated from her parents in the flash floods, was found alive neck deep in slush in one of the building in the battalion campus though her face had several injuries.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 9 Aug 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 9 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:00:00 IST