Earlier officials had put the death toll at more than 100 but as rescue work progressed, officials gave an updated new death toll.

"In all 35 persons have died, and so far 19 bodies have been recoved," A.K. Puri Director General Police Himachal Pradesh said late Wednesday. "The rescue operations will start again tomorrow (Thursday) morning."

Puri said around 450 persons were involved in the massive rescue operations.

Vir Bhadra Singh, the chief minister of the mountaineous Himachal Pradesh state where Kulu is situated, told journalists that the downpour caused by a cloud burst, led to havoc and widespread death in the remote region.

Singh could not fly to Kulu due to inclement weather but was likely to reach the site Thursday if the weather improved. Kulu is one of India's most popular health and trekking resorts.

The chief minister said some 230 workers -- lower than police estimates -- mostly migrant labourers from India's Bihar state and Nepal, were at the construction site when they were hit by the downpour.

"Supplies of blankets, essential rations, shrouds for the dead and money to provide immediate relief has been sent to the calamity site and rescue operations are in full swing," the chief minister said.

About 14 labourers of a private firm working on the project were among those washed away in the flash flood, they said.

The police estimated that scores of workers were asleep in their shanties in two different camps at the construction site at the time of the flash flood.

Heavy monsoon rains fell on Kulu's remote Garsa area where employees were working on the state-funded Parvati hydro-project, one of Asia's largest.

"Mobile telephones don't work and the local communication network has been wiped away by the cloudburst, so information is coming in trickles," a senior official overseeing relief measures told journalists in Shimla.

"Our men are now relying only on their wireless sets," he added.

A bridge connecting the disaster site to rest of the mountainous state was also swept away by the gush, the state government officials said.

The incident came to light when villagers reported seeing a few bodies floating downstream in the swollen Parvati river from the disaster site.

The Parvati is a tributary of the larger Beas river, which flows from Pakistan into India.

The site was 26 kilometres from Kulu town and local roads and a bridge have been wiped out by the rains, district officials said.

Himachal Pradesh is notorious for sudden downpours.

About 200 people were killed in July 1997 when torrential rains pounded the state's Chirgaon region and four years later a downpour devastated parts of the tribal Kinnaur valley.

TERRA.WIRE