AFGHANISTAN: A desperate effort was under way to rescue several people trapped in at least 20 vehicles buried by an avalanche near the Salang Tunnel that connects north and south Afghanistan, a UN spokesman said yesterday.
"Attempts are under way to save the people and get them out," the spokesman, Mr Yusuf Hassan, said.
The rescue effort was being hampered by the lack of snow clearing equipment in the vicinity of the tunnel, on a steep pass in the Hindu Kush mountains, about 80 km north of Kabul. Teams from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the UN and the International Security Assistance Force were involved in the rescue, he said. The number of people trapped was not known, but the route is mainly used by buses, minibuses and trucks plying the route between Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. "We will be helping the authorities in whichever way we can . . . but we do not have equipment to rescue people from under an avalanche," Mr Hassan said.
Travellers heading to northern Afghanistan yesterday said they were forced to return because knee-deep snow made the road impassable. Weather officials have reported the heaviest falls of snow in years in most parts of Afghanistan since the weekend, raising hopes a crippling three-year drought may be broken.