Lucknow: More than 2,000 tourists in over 300 vehicles were stuck for eight hours on Monday morning at Rampur on the Rudraprayag-Kedarnath highway in Uttarakhand as landslides caused by heavy rain since Sunday night blocked the road.

Traffic was partially restored at 11am, allowing four-wheelers through, but trucks and other heavy vehicles had to wait another seven-and-a-half hours before they could move around 6.30pm.

Most of the travellers are pilgrims undertaking the Chardhan Yatra - the pilgrimage to Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri - which had started in April and will continue till November.

The Centre said the Rishikesh-Yamunotri national highway had been closed to all vehicles because of landslides.

Uttarakhand's hill districts have been receiving heavy rain intermittently since Saturday morning. The landslides have mostly happened around Rampur in Rudraprayag district, but no deaths have been reported there.

But Narayani Singh, a woman from village Gaila-Patharkot in Pithoragarh district, fell into a ditch and died when a falling boulder hit her. Over a dozen villages in the district are submerged.

In many villages, people living in kachcha houses have taken shelter in nearby schools and government buildings.

The forest department fears that 50-odd rabbits living in Pithoragarh's forests got buried in the debris from the floodwaters and landslides.

The Seraghat hydel project and an attached dam in Pithoragarh have been partially damaged, disrupting power supply in certain areas.

Krishna Nath Goswami, sub-divisional magistrate of Pithoragarh, said that the nullahs were overflowing. A road that connects Thal and Munsyari has been swept away.

Vikram Singh, director of the state's meteorological department, said on Monday evening the rain might continue for several more hours.

A report by disaster management authorities says that rainwater swept rocks and mud into 14 houses at Madkot-Basantkot village in Pithoragarh. A footbridge in village Seragaon has been damaged and a 12-foot bridge swept away in Dijiyagarh village.

Chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said: "Daily life was disrupted in Munsyari, Bangapani and Dharchula (all in Pithoragarh district).... There are reports of some cattle drowning."

He said the administration was working for "relief and restoration of connectivity" and that the state disaster response force had been deployed and its central counterpart put on alert.