Hopes of finding more than 180 missing people alive waned as rescue workers searched through mud and debris for a third day on Thursday after landslides set off by torrential rains killed at least 194 people in southern India.

The rescue work was challenging in a forested, hilly area while more rain fell, said PM Manoj, a spokesman for Kerala state’s top elected official.

Nearly 40 bodies were found downstream after being swept some 30 kilometres (20 miles) down the Chaliyar River from the area in Wayanad district where the main landslides occurred. Body parts were also recovered.

Torrents of mud and water swept through tea estates and villages in hilly areas in the district early on Tuesday.

They flattened houses and destroyed bridges, and rescuers had to pull out people stuck under mud and debris.

India Landslides
Rescuers use machinery to sift through debris (Rafiq Maqbool/AP)

“This is one of the worst natural calamities Kerala state has ever witnessed,” Kerala’s top elected official, Pinarayi Vijayan, said.

Mr Manoj said 187 people were unaccounted for as of Thursday. In addition to the dead and missing, 186 people were injured. Local media reported most of the victims were tea estate workers.

More than 5,500 people have been rescued, Mr Vijayan said, with some 1,100 rescue personnel, helicopters and heavy equipment involved.

The army was constructing a temporary bridge after the main bridge in one of the worst-affected areas was swept away. Images from the site show rescue workers making their way through muck and floodwaters, while a land excavator was clearing the debris.

OS Jerry, a cardamom estate manager, said he regularly travelled through the district. “There was a lovely school over here,” he said, adding that many houses were now gone.

The Mundakkai and Chooralmala areas are destroyed with extreme devastation, Mr Vijayan said.

Mr Manoj said more than 8,300 people have been moved to 82 government-run relief camps. The government is ensuring food delivery and essential items to the relief camps.

Kerala, one of India’s most popular tourist destinations, is prone to heavy rains, flooding and landslides. The Indian Meteorological Department said Wayanad district had up to 28 centimetres (11 inches) of rain on Monday and Tuesday.

Heavy rains also wreaked havoc in other parts of India this week.

New Delhi, the Indian capital, shut schools on Thursday after torrential downpours the previous day submerged roads, left residents stranded and killed at least two people, news agency Press Trust of India reported. More rains were expected this week.

In the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh, popular with tourists, three people were killed and around 40 were reported missing after heavy rains and two cloudbursts washed away homes, flooded roads and damaged infrastructure, authorities told PTI on Thursday.

Four people were also killed Wednesday in the neighbouring Uttarakhand state following heavy rains.

Meanwhile, at least 13 people, including three children, were killed in lightning strikes in eastern Bihar state on Thursday, a statement from the chief minister’s office said. Most of the victims had gone to plant paddy in the fields when lightning struck them.