Afghan avalanches toll goes up

[FarCenter]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201021083946138428.html

At least 166 people have been killed in avalanches that blocked a mountain pass north of the Afghan capital, according to official sources.

Afghan troops helped dig a footpath through snow alongside miles of stranded cars in the Salang Pass on Wednesday.

Zemeri Bashary, an interior ministry spokesman, said rescuers had recovered a total of 157 bodies since avalanches buried people in vehicles on the busy road two days earlier.

He said 2,600 people had been rescued so far.

<SNIP>

Days of heavy snowfall triggered the snow slides, which blocked the 2.6km Salang tunnel - a historic engineering feat that links Kabul and Afghanistan's north.

More than 200 lorries, buses and cars were trapped inside the tunnel at 3,400 metres above sea level.

[malaise]

1. Very sad

not a nice death either.

[More_liberal_than_mo]

2. I went through that pass

in March 2002. We arrived at 9am and didn't get through until 4pm. There had been an avalanche two weeks earlier that killed 30 people and 2 months before another avalanche had trapped 60 people inside the main tunnel where they died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The tunnel has no ventilation. The reason we were delayed so long was that there is a long steep galleria (a partially covered section) that protects vehicles from being swept away by the most frequent avalanches that had an iced over roadway. A bus earlier had started sliding backwards down the steep incline and got stuck cross-ways in the galleria. It took 5 hours to get it out. Then once inside the main tunnel a car directly in front of ours got stuck in the frozen ruts made by big trucks. Right in the middle of the tunnel water gushes out onto the roadway then freezes. We had to get out and push them and I nearly choked on the fumes. It was a real scary moment in that tunnel when I realized that if we didn't get this guy moving we were going to asphyxiate.