DUSHANBE (Sputnik) – At least seven people were killed in Tajikistan after a series of avalanches hit the Central Asian republic on Sunday and Monday, the spokeswoman of the country’s Committee for Emergency Situations (CoES) told Sputnik Monday. Two more died in avalanches in the remote Pamir region in the country's east, the committee said. A spokeswoman for Tajikistan's Emergencies Committee, Umeda Yusufova, told RFE/RL on January 30 that the death toll may rise as rescue teams continue working on the Dushanbe-Khujand highway and in the Gorno-Badakhshan region, where more than 40 major avalanches were registered over the weekend. She added that following the avalanches, the country's authorities had evacuated up to 800 people and 200 cars from the affected areas. The CoES calls on the residents of the country, as well as on the visitors of Tajikistan to refrain from traveling to the avalanche zones, because of the existing threat of a natural disaster, the spokeswoman said.
Several avalanches in Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan, caused by heavy snowfall over the weekend, leave at least seven people dead.