A bus smashed into a bridge and plunged into a river in India, killing at least 16 people after the driver lost control of the vehicle, police said.

Another three people were in critical condition after the bus, carrying 35 people, veered off the bridge in the mountainous northern state of Uttarakhand.

More than 200,000 people remained stranded Saturday in Indian Kashmir even as flood waters receded, revealing the full extent of the horrific devastation in the Himalayan region, including neighbouring Pakistan, officials said.

India's top court ruled on Friday that a sick Italian marine detained for the 2012 killing of two fishermen can go home for medical treatment.

Deadly flooding has affected more than one million people in Pakistan, officials said Wednesday, as anger mounted in Indian Kashmir over the slow pace of rescue operations for hundreds of thousands left stranded.

The floods and landslides from days of heavy rains have now claimed more than 450 lives in Pakistan and India, where emergency workers scrambled to rescue residents left marooned on rooftops and clinging to trees.

Police Wednesday charged the president of India's ruling political party, Amit Shah, over a speech that allegedly inflamed religious tensions during the national election campaign, an officer said.

Shah, leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was charged for the speech he made at a rally in northern Uttar Pradesh state that was torn apart last year by deadly Muslim-Hindu riots.

Emergency workers battled Tuesday to reach hundreds of thousands of people marooned by floods in India and Pakistan that have claimed more than 400 lives, as anger grew over the speed of the rescue effort.

The army said it was airlifting boats to the worst-hit areas of Indian Kashmir, where whole villages have been submerged and an estimated 400,000 people are stranded in the region's worst flooding for half a century.

Desperate residents were huddled on rooftops Monday as they tried to escape flood waters which have already claimed more than 350 lives in India and Pakistan and left tens of thousands homeless.

With phone lines down and roads cut off, the exact scale of the disaster in the cross-border Kashmir region and Pakistan's Punjab province is still unclear but video footage shot from army helicopters showed entire villages completely under water.

Soldiers were battling Sunday to rescue thousands trapped by Indian Kashmir's worst flooding for half a century which has killed at least 150 people and left the main city of Srinagar under water.

Some 350 villages have also been submerged since torrential monsoon rains triggered flooding and landslides across the picturesque Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

Deadly floods hit Indian Kashmir's main city of Srinagar on Sunday, forcing scores of residents to flee as Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the region to see the devastation first-hand.

More than 200 people in Pakistan and northern India have been killed in torrential monsoon rains which triggered flooding, landslides and house collapses, officials in the two countries said Saturday.

Troops and other emergency personnel were deployed in both countries to help with relief operations, with boats and helicopters being used to reach stranded people.