Rescuers continued digging Saturday despite 'very slim chances' of finding any more people alive in the mud and debris from a major landslide in western India, where 73 have been killed.

Some 157 asylum-seekers who were detained at sea for weeks by Australia have been sent to the Pacific island of Nauru after rejecting a return to India, officials said Saturday.

Sri Lanka extended an "unqualified apology" to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday over an article and uncomplimentary illustration of the leader and a regional Tamil politician published on a government website.

The Sri Lankan defense ministry said it had taken down the offending caricature of Modi and the chief minister of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, following complaints to Colombo.

A massive blast at an explosives factory in central India killed five workers early Friday, police said.

Rescue workers were losing hope Friday of finding survivors amid the mud and debris from a major landslide in western India, where 150 people are feared to have been killed.

Sixty bodies and eight survivors have now been pulled from the site where a village once stood in a remote part of Maharashtra state, but incessant rains and strong winds have hampered rescue efforts.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Narendra Modi that India's stance on a key WTO trade deal sent the wrong message, as he met the country's new prime minister for the first time on Friday.

Kerry has expressed optimism about expanding cooperation between the world's two largest democracies during a first visit aimed at reviving a relationship clouded by mistrust.

India's foreign minister told her visiting counterpart John Kerry Thursday that U.S. surveillance of an ally was "unacceptable" after recent allegations that Washington's National Security Agency targeted the ruling party.

"I raised this issue and even told them that when the news came out in the Indian media, people were angry," Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said at a joint press conference with Kerry in New Delhi.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry voiced optimism Thursday about working with India's new right-wing government as he paid a first visit aimed at reviving a relationship clouded by mistrust.

The United States and India have described each other as natural allies with common concerns about a rising China and Islamic extremism, but the world's largest democracies have weathered an unusually large number of disputes in the past year.

Rescuers battled through heavy rains on Thursday in a desperate search for victims of a landslide in western India that buried dozens of homes, with fears the death toll could reach 150.

Twenty three people were confirmed dead and eight pulled alive from the mud and debris in Maharashtra state, but with the rain and strong winds hampering rescue efforts, hopes were fading of finding any more survivors.

The death toll from a major landslide Wednesday in western India was expected to exceed 150, a health official said, after heavy monsoon rains sent mud and rocks tumbling onto homes.

Emergency forces rushed to a remote village in the state of Maharashtra, where a hill collapsed in the morning as residents were reportedly sleeping.