Sixteen people were killed in Indian-administered Kashmir, with rescuers searching for dozens more missing, after flash floods swept away hundreds of tents near a popular Hindu pilgrimage site, officials said Saturday, AFP reported.

Around 10,000 people were camped near the remote Amarnath temple, nestled in a Himalayan mountain cave, when a sudden cloudburst triggered a deluge.

Frequent whizzing helicopter sorties were evacuating the dead and an unknown number of panicked and injured pilgrims from the Baltal base camp to the north of the shrine.

"We found 16 bodies so far and at least 40 are missing," an official from the state disaster response agency told AFP.

"Security forces and all the rescue teams are looking for the missing and injured," the official added.

The pilgrimage is being held for the first time since 2019 after a two-year halt brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

In normal times it is one of the biggest religious events in Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region disputed between India and Pakistan that has long been the site of an insurgency against Indian rule.

But treacherous weather in the mountains has in the past posed a bigger threat than security issues in the restive territory.

Nearly 250 people died in 1996 when they were suddenly caught up in snowstorms that hit the area.