Rescuers are still working Tuesday to find at least 35 Indian construction workers trapped in a tunnel, two days after the hydroelectric dam they were building was swept away by a wall of water from a collapsed glacier.
Officials said the death toll rose to at least 30, and the trapped workers are among at least 170 people who were still unaccounted for after a section of glacier from Nanda Devi, India's second highest peak, collapsed, sending water from a glacial lake cascading down the Dhauliganga Rver Sunday.
The wall of water broke apart bridges, cut off villages and scarred tracts of mountainside.
Officials said most of those still missing were shift workers at either the Tapovan Vishnugad hydroelectric project, where the tunnel was situated, or at Rishiganga, a smaller dam, which was swept away in the flood.
Soldiers using bulldozers cleared rocks at the mouth of the 2.5-kilometer tunnel, and video posted by the Indo-Tibetan border police service showed rescuers checking the water level deeper inside.
A government official said many locals had apparently managed to escape the waters by fleeing to higher ground as soon as they heard the rumble of water racing down the valley.
Officials have yet to determine what caused the disaster, though scientists investigating it believe heavy snowfall followed by bright sunshine combined with rising temperatures may have triggered the glacier's collapse.
