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Afghanistan avalanche kills 37 in Badakhshan

06 March 2012 16:43 (UTC +04:00)

The provincial governor’s office said another six people were injured when the snow hit a village in Shekay district, near the Tajikistan border. The village had been wiped away, said spokesman Abdul Marouf Rasikh, and the death toll is expected to rise. Badakhshan is one of the country’s poorest and most remote regions and is shut off by heavy snow every year. Afghanistan is suffering one of its harshest winters in many years. Deputy Governor Shams Ul Rahman told the Associated Press that 200 people had lived in the village. He said 37 bodies had been recovered. Many people are still reported to be missing and a rescue team is making its way to the area, the BBC’s Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says. Mr Rasikh told the BBC that provincial governor Shah Wali Ullah had been visiting at the time the avalanche hit on Monday night. He was rescued by helicopter and taken to a remote area on the border with Tajikistan, he said.
Map Nasir Hemat, director of the Red Crescent in Badakhsham, said up for 4m of snow was lying in some areas of the province and those roads between the capital, Faizabad, and remote rural areas were impassable for six months of the year. He told the BBC that 60 people had been killed by the snow this year and that homes and cattle had been lost. "This has been a tragedy this year," he said. Local officials said in January that the winter conditions were at an emergency level and appealed for help.