The death toll of Tuesday's massive landslides in India's southern state of Kerala rose to 256, Xinhua reports citing the state's Health Minister Veena George on Thursday.

She said one of the main focuses of the state government was to prevent the spread of contagious diseases in the area, since it was still raining there and bodies lay under the rubble of the landslides.

"So far we have conducted post-mortem on 256 dead bodies, which includes human body parts too. 154 dead bodies have been handed over to the district administration after the post-mortem. Genetic samples of human body-parts recovered are being collected and DNA tests on dead bodies are also being conducted. It will help us in identifying the dead bodies and human limbs at a later stage," the minister told media.

"I visited the hospitals and relief camps. Our priority is to provide psychological support, and focus on controlling contagious diseases," said the official.

According to her, another 220 persons were still missing, and the rescue work was on to pull out the injured persons from under the rubble of the landslides.

Within a span of two hours three landslides had hit the Meppadi area of Kerala's Wayanad district early on Tuesday morning amid heavy rain, while the people were still asleep. The tragedy was described as one the biggest in recent times in the southern state.

The state government had set up relief camps to accommodate those rendered homeless after the natural tragedy. Over 3,500 people were rehabilitated in these relief camps.

Thousands of personnel of the Indian Army, the Indian Air Force, the Indian Navy, the National Disaster Response Force, state-level disaster management body, local police, doctors, medical teams, and other local administration officials were put into service to carry out the rescue work, and also provide relief and succor to the survivors, a local government official told Xinhua over phone.