A woman and her seven children aged between 5 and 20 were killed by an avalanche that came down on their house in eastern Tajikistan, the government emergencies agency said Monday. Another avalanche killed a 17-year-old teenager in a neighboring village in the Jigartal district, 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) east of the capital Dushanbe, The Associated Press quoted the agency as saying. Both avalanches occurred on Sunday. Mountains cover about 90 percent of this Central Asian nation's territory, and avalanches are common here in spring.
