Avalanches in northern Afghanistan leave 186 dead

More than 180 people have been killed in north Afghanistan in some of the worst avalanches there for 30 years, officials said on Thursday.

Officials warned of an imminent humanitarian emergency in areas most severely hit by the bad weather, with snow sweeping through villages and blocking off roads.

"We haven't seen this much snow, or this many avalanches, for 30 years," said Abdul Rahman Kabiri, acting governor of the mountainous province of Panjshir, north of Kabul, where 186 people were killed and more than 100 injured in avalanches.

In a statement on Wednesday, president Ashraf Ghani said he was "saddened by news of the avalanches and flooding across the country". He said he had ordered urgent assessments of the extent of damage and offered his condolences to the families of the dead.

Temperatures have plummeted across the country, though the snow was expected to start melting in the Panjshir Valley and much of the mountainous north-west of the Hindu Kush range in coming days, according to forecasts.

Afghanistan has suffered through some three decades of war since the Soviet invasion in 1979. But natural disasters such as landslides, floods and avalanches have taken a toll on a country with little infrastructure or development outside of its major cities.

In May, a massive landslide killed anywhere from 250 to 2,700 people, authorities said at the time. Another landslide in 2012 killed 71 people. Authorities were not able to recover the vast majority of bodies and ended up declaring the site a massive grave.

Agencies