(CNN) – At least 13 people have died and dozens are missing after a landslide caused rocks and blocks to roll and crash into a road in northern India’s Himachal Pradesh state on Wednesday.
The landslide occurred in the morning local time, leaving a bus and several more vehicles trapped on the road on the mountainside.
A rescue operation at the site of a landslide in Kinnaur district in northern India’s Himachal Pradesh state on August 11.
Photos from the scene show rescue workers navigating crushed vehicle parts, overturned cars and strewn debris, with parts of the road completely blocked by loose dirt falling from the mountain above.
Search and rescue teams from the Indian National Disaster Response Force and other emergency agencies were immediately deployed to the site, and operations continued overnight. More than 200 people continued to work along the stretch of National Highway 5, which connects northern India with the border with China, according to Reuters.
So far, 13 people have been rescued, a spokesman for the Indo-Tibetan Border Police said on Thursday. More than 20 people are still missing, he said.
Soldiers transport the body of a victim from the site of a landslide in Himachal Pradesh, India, on August 11.
“The rubble fell from quite high up,” local police chief Saju Ram Rana told Reuters, adding that heavy machinery was being brought in to clear the area.
“The devastating tragedy in Kinnaur is very sad,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Wednesday night. “In this hour of pain, my thoughts are with the families of those who lost their lives. May the injured recover as soon as possible.”
Indian National Disaster Response Force soldiers at the site of a landslide in Kinnaur district in Himachal Pradesh state on August 11.
Modi’s office also tweeted that the government would provide 200,000 rupees (about US $ 2,696) to the families of those who died in the landslide and 50,000 rupees (US $ 674) to the injured.
In the last month, India recorded dozens of deaths due to landslides caused by torrential rains. In July, at least 31 people were killed in two landslides in Mumbai.