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Indian authorities scrambled to rescue thousands of people trapped after floods and landslides ravaged the Himalayan region, leaving up to 1,000 feared dead, CNN reported. 

The exact number of those killed will not be clear until the muddy waters are cleaned up and the bodies recovered, said Vijay Bahuguna, the chief minister of Uttarakhand state, which is the worst-hit.

"Certainly, the number of the dead is much higher than 550 ... and it could be around 1,000 as figures coming in suggest," he said Saturday.

Emergency operations include the military and all forms of transportation, including trains moving people for free.

About 70,000 have been evacuated since the floods hit this month.

Barrages of water, mud and rocks have hit scores of towns and villages in the Indian state, inundating homes, shrines, roads and vehicles.

Bahuguna has described the disaster as a "Himalayan tsunami."

Dotted with temples and often referred to as "the Land of Gods," Uttarakhand attracts large numbers of pilgrims from around India to its mountainous reaches. Those travelers, many of them far from home and short on belongings, are now caught up in the destruction.

Thousands of rescue workers are trying to reach more than 50,000 people cut off by the waters. Bahuguna told CNN's sister network CNN-IBN on Friday night that the death toll was 556 but could rise. The bodies "were either buried or floating in slush," he said. It will take 15 days to complete evacuations in the province, he added.