At least 23 people have died and around 50 others are missing after three days of torrential rain washed away buildings and roads in northern India, officials said.

Amit Negi, an official in Uttarakhand state, said more than a dozen people were killed in one district alone.

A landslide triggered by the monsoon rains buried a bus, killing three people in Almora district. At least three other people were washed away when a three-storey apartment building toppled into a river and was carried away by the swift-moving current.

More than 10,000 pilgrims stranded along a mountain pass leading to a Hindu religious site were being evacuated by helicopter.