Afghan officials said rescue efforts restarted early Thursday to find people buried under snow after a series of deadly avalanches in the north-east of the country, dpa reported. Several avalanches in Panjsher province killed at least 122 people after two days of heavy and continuous snowfall, with many more people missing, said provincial police chief Abdul Aziz Ghairat. "Rescue teams and villagers have walked to the affected areas to dig up the buried, and the operation is ongoing," Ghairat told dpa. The death toll was likely to rise, he said. "Rescue team has arrived and will continue to dig out the bodies of those trapped under snow. Roads to all these villages are blocked due to snow," said Khan Zaman, a police official in Bazarak district, one of the areas worst hit by the avalanche. "Senior police and army officials are planning joint rescue operations in some of the remote areas," he said. The avalanches took place in the Khinj, Darah, Bazarak and Hesa-e-Awal districts of the mountainous province north-east of Kabul, and about 100 homes have been buried under the snow.
