Families throughout India were frantically trying to track down their missing relatives. 
 
 “Four of my friends, who are priests, are missing,” said Naresh Kukreti, 34, a priest at the Kedarnath temple, one of the holiest shrines of Hinduism. “We don’t know whether they are alive or dead.” 
 
 Mr. Kukreti said Saturday that after the ritual evening prayer last Sunday, he had been filled with unease. “It had been raining for two days, and fewer pilgrims were visiting the temple,” he said. “I had a strange feeling something terrible was about to happen.” 
 
 After prayers, Mr. Kukreti retired to his modest quarters. “Suddenly a deafening noise shook everything,” he said. “It felt like an earthquake.” 
 
 Mr. Kukreti and about 800 pilgrims sought refuge in the stone temple, which was built in the eighth century 11,759 feet above sea level and dedicated to Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. 
 
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 “Within minutes, a river of black water and big stones followed us into the temple,” he said by phone after returning to his home village, Tailagram, in the Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand. 
 
 The temple survived the assault, but when the water receded after a cold night of prayer, Mr. Kukreti found himself standing among piles of dead pilgrims. “Everywhere I looked I saw dead men, women and children,” he said. 
 
 Most of the buildings around the temple were destroyed, and the town of Kedarnath, which has grown around the temple, was submerged. After braving cold, hunger and grief for three days inside the temple, Mr. Kukreti and about 400 pilgrims hiked a few miles to an emergency landing pad, and rescue helicopters flew them to a relief camp. 
 
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 Google has developed a Person Finder application for the Uttarakhand area, and the state government has created a message board on its Web site, where relatives of missing pilgrims are posting their phone numbers and names, and the last locations and pictures of their missing relatives. In a message on the Uttarakhand government bulletin board, Rajneesh, an anxious relative, who uses only one name, said he was looking for his missing brother and sister-in-law and their two children named Honey and Money. 
 
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 The Himalayan pilgrimage centers have been straining to cope with the disaster. In the past two decades, religious expression has increased in India along with economic growth, and the number of pilgrims visiting religious sites has greatly increased. According to official statistics, 30 million tourists visited Uttarakhand in 2010, up from 10 million in 2001, according to official statistics. 
 
 “It is an ecologically fragile region and the Himalayas are young mountains, but there is haphazard construction to serve increasing numbers of tourists and pilgrims,” said Ashish Kothari, an Indian environmentalist and a co-author of “Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India.” “All sorts of hydroelectric projects are coming up in these areas, and anything goes in the name of environment assessment.” 
 
 The rescuers are racing against time; the Indian Meteorological Department predicted more rain in northern India starting Monday. 
 
 Around 73,000 pilgrims have been evacuated, according to Indian officials. In an interview with a television network, Mr. Bahuguna, the chief minister of Uttarakhand, said it might take about two weeks to evacuate all stranded pilgrims and find the missing. 
 
 Mr. Kukreti, the priest, said many people “were so scared” that they “ran into forests to save themselves.” 
 
 “I worry how any helicopters can reach those who are in narrow valleys or jungles,” he said. “They might die of hunger before the government reaches them.” ||||| Person Finder is no longer active for the Uttarakhand floods. We thank everyone who contributed to the response. In accordance with our standard practice, the data entered into Person Finder will be deleted to protect the privacy of everyone affected by the event. Our hearts are with you, Uttarakhand.
– Flash flooding in northern India this week has killed at least 1,000 people, with the death toll expected to rise. The floods came as thousands of Hindu pilgrims were visiting shrines in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. Around 73,000 pilgrims have been evacuated, according to local officials, but another 40,000 are still stranded in what the Indian government is calling a "national crisis," the New York Times reports. The rescue effort is particularly challenging because of the region's mountainous terrain, with some areas at least 11,000 feet above sea level. The military has sent in more than 40 helicopters, but one crashed yesterday during a rescue attempt. "I worry how any helicopters can reach those who are in narrow valleys or jungles," says a priest at one of the shrines. "They might die of hunger before the government reaches them." Google has set up a "person finder" site to help friends and relatives locate those missing in the floods.