Rescuers look for survivors in India

MUMBAI -- Rescuers pulled bodies yesterday from rivers of mud in and around flood-ravaged Mumbai as they searched for survivors of record-breaking monsoon rains that killed at least 513 people this week.

A stampede set off by rumors of a dam burst late yesterday also killed at least 15 people, including seven children, and injured more than 25 in a Bombay shantytown, said R.R. Patil, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state.

Officials said 273 people have died in Mumbai since Tuesday, when the cosmopolitan city was hit by an unprecedented deluge of up to 37.1 inches of rain in some areas, the highest recorded one-day total in India's history. Much of it came in a few evening hours, transforming roads into rivers.

The rains stretched into Wednesday, paralyzing Mumbai, which is also known as Bombay, and devastating wide swaths of surrounding Maharashtra state.

The downpours finally ended yesterday, leaving an overcast sky.

A government-ordered holiday kept workers at home yesterday as normally bustling Mumbai struggled to get back on track. Phone service was still spotty, some neighborhoods remained without electricity, and stretches of road were blocked by hundreds of cars abandoned when they stalled in the rain.

By evening, train service was back and the city's airports, among the busiest in the nation, were again open to flights.

In the northern Mumbai suburb of Saki Naka, relief workers and survivors searched the ruins of a shantytown crushed when a water-soaked hill collapsed on top of it. While the complete toll was unclear, at least 110 people were killed and more than 45 others were missing and presumed dead.

In Mumbai, most victims drowned, were crushed by falling walls, or were electrocuted.

At least 513 people have been reported dead across Maharashtra state since Monday, said B.M. Kulkarni, the deputy secretary in charge of the state's emergency control room in Mumbai.