The meteorological centre of Shimla on Tuesday cautioned of moderate flash flood risk in isolated parts of Himachal Pradesh's seven out of 12 districts -- Kangra, Sirmaur, Chamba, Shimla, Kullu, Kinnaur and Mandi -- in the next 24 hours.

The weather office issued an 'orange' alert of very heavy rain in parts of 10 districts of Bilaspur, Chamba, Hamirpur, Kangra, Kullu, Mandi, Shimla, Sirmaur, Solan and Una for the next 24 hours till Wednesday evening.  It also issued an 'orange' warning of heavy to very heavy rain, thunderstorms and lightning at isolated places in the state on August 7 and 10. 

Monsoon activity is likely to intensify from Tuesday evening and continue for the next five to six days, bringing fairly widespread rain across the state, the MeT said.  As intermittent rain continued to lash several parts of the state, 53 roads were closed, while 63 water supply schemes were affected, the state emergency operation centre said on Tuesday evening.

Sixteen people died in flash floods triggered by cloudbursts in Kullu, Mandi and Shimla districts on July 31 and 40 are still missing.  Eighteen roads were closed in Kullu, 16 in Mandi, nine in Lahaul and Spiti, six in Kangra and two each in Sirmaur and Kinnaur on Tuesday evening, the emergency response centre said.

Meanwhile, the death toll due to flash floods triggered by cloudbursts in three districts of Himachal Pradesh increased to 16 on Tuesday with the recovery of two more bodies.  About 40 people are still missing after a series of cloudbursts occurred in Kullu's Nirmand, Sainj and Malana, Mandi's Padhar and Shimla's Rampur subdivision on the night of July 31 and wreaked havoc. The worst hit was the Samej village on the border of Shimla and Kullu districts where over 30 people are missing.    

 
According to the officials, 410 rescuers from teams of the Army, NDRF, SDRF, ITBP, CISF, Himachal Pradesh Police and home guards are involved in the hunt and rescuers have intensified the search operation by deploying more machinery, sniffer dog squad, drones and other equipment.The hill state suffered a loss of Rs 684 crore since the onset of monsoon on June 27 till August 5. Eighty-seven people have lost their lives in rain-related incidents, as per the state emergency operation centre.