Himalayan glacier burst: Over 18 killed and 200 missing in India

Rescuers in India are looking for more than 200 people are missing in the Himalayas, including some ambushed in a tunnel after a piece of a glacier melted away and started an avalanche of water, rock, and dust into a mountain valley has.

Sunday's violent surge under Nanda Devi, India's second-highest peak, swept away the small Rishiganga hydroelectric project and damaged a larger one further into the Dhauliganga River built by state-owned NTPC.

Eighteen bodies were recovered from the mountain slopes, officials said.

Most of the missing were people who worked on the two projects. Many of the government-built deep in the mountains of Uttarakhand state as part of a development push.

"As of now, about 203 people are missing," said Prime Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat. The number changed as more information about people caught by the flood came from the remote area.

Social media videos show water flowing through a small dam site, washing away construction equipment and bringing down small bridges.

"Everything has been swept away, people, cattle and trees," Sangram Singh Rawat, a former Raini village councilor closest to the Rishiganga project, told local media.

Rescue teams were set to drill through a 2.5km tunnel on the Tapovan Vishnugad hydroelectric project site that NTPC built 5km downstream and where about 30 workers were caught.

"We are attempting to crack open the tunnel, it is a long one, about 2.5 km," said Ashok Kumar, the state police chief. He said rescuers entered the tunnel 150 meters (490 meters), but debris and sludge slowed progress.

There was still no voice contact with anyone in the tunnel, another official said. Heavy equipment was used and a group of dogs flew to the site to locate heirs.

On Sunday, 12 people were released from another, much shorter tunnel, and it was not immediately clear what caused the glacier to burst on a clear Sunday morning. Experts said it was snowing heavily in the Nanda Devi area last week and that some of the snow might have started to melt and possibly led to an avalanche.

Uttarakhand is prone to flash floods and slides, and the disaster has led to calls from environmental organizations for a discussion of power plans in the ecologically delicate mountains. In June 2013, record torrential rains there caused devastating floods that killed nearly 6,000 people.