TROOPS battled today to rescue thousands stranded in Indian Kashmir and northern and eastern Pakistan, where flooding and landslides have left more than 320 dead.

In Indian Kashmir, six days of rain have triggered the worst flooding in more than five decades, submerging hundreds of villages and causing more than 120 deaths.

And in neighbouring Pakistan, more than 205 have died and thousands of homes have collapsed.

Troops were helping civilian authorities in rescue operations and delivering aid, said Pakistan’s army.

Islamabad’s National Disaster Management Authority spokesman Ahmad Kamal said nearly 9,000 people had been evacuated from almost 530 villages.

Mr Kamal warned that conditions were likely to get worse, with the waters of the Chenab and Indus rivers rising.

Control of Kashmir is split between India, China and Pakistan and they have been locked in sometimes violent dispute over the territory since a disastrous partition at the end of British rule.

More than 5,200 people have been rescued from the Indian portion of Kashmir, said India’s National Disaster Response Force director OP Singh.

Blankets, medicine and food were being supplied to people stranded on rooftops, he said, as most parts of main regional city Srinagar were submerged.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who surveyed the flood-hit areas by helicopter on Sunday, promised the state an additional 10 billion rupees (£100 million) for aid and compensation to those hit by the floods.

He also sent a letter to his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif offering help to the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir. There was no immediate response to the offer.