Police in Indian Kashmir collect bodies floating in worst floods in...

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Authorities in Indian Kashmir collected bodies floating in the streets on Thursday as anger mounted over what many survivors said was a bungled operation to help those caught in the region's worst flooding in 50 years.

Both the Indian and Pakistan sides of the disputed Himalayan region have been hit by extensive flooding in recent days, and about 450 people have been killed, with Indian Kashmir's main city of Srinagar particularly hard hit.

"Some air force officials have reported that they have seen bodies of women and children floating. We are making every effort to collect the bodies as soon as we can," said Srinagar police officer Faizal Wani.

He later said police dragged the bodies of three men, including a news photographer, from the water near the centre of the city famed for its lakes and mountain views.

The ferocity of the floods appeared to have caught the administration in Indian Kashmir by surprise and has prompted an outpouring of anger in a Muslim-majority region where a 25-year-old revolt against Indian rule simmers.

In Pakistan, the death toll climbed to 257 and more than half a million people have been affected by the floods, with large tracts of farmland inundated and houses swept away.

"I do not know how and from where the floods came from. It came so suddenly that even our experts were caught unaware," Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said during a visit to Haveli, one of the worst-affected areas in Pakistani Kashmir.

In Srinagar, Wani said the army and state officials were moving survivors to field hospitals and relief camps on higher grounds. Nearly 100,000 people have been rescued by the military in the past week, many of them by helicopter.

Police said some Srinagar residents had been trapped in the top floors of their homes since the Jhelum river, swollen by unusually heavy rain, surged higher last week. The river flows from Indian Kashmir to the Pakistan side, and then down into Pakistan's lower Indus river basin.

REUTERS

Police in Indian Kashmir collect bodies floating in worst floods in years