An avalanche engulfed houses and cut off roads in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, killing at least 45 people, the latest victims in the country's worst winter in 30 years.
Heavy snow blanketed 13 houses and blocked roads leading into a district of Nuristan province, near the border with Pakistan, preventing help from reaching avalanche victims, deputy provincial governor Mohammad Nabi Ahmadi said.
An entire village in northern Badakhshan province was covered by an avalanche almost a week ago, killing at least 50 people.
Though avalanches are common in the mountainous north and east, the latest deaths are particularly painful during a winter that has killed dozens in the capital Kabul and created further food shortages in one of the world's poorest countries.
The rough winter has also meant freezing conditions. The hardest-hit have been people living in tents in a number of camps around the capital. The deaths in these camps, so close to the offices of international organizations overseeing billions of dollars in aid to the country, have shocked many in Kabul.
The U.N. and the U.S. aid agency have started distributing extra blankets, tarps and fuel to people living in 40 camps throughout the city, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement last month.
Most of those in the camps have fled from Helmand and Kunduz provinces, though some are Afghans who have returned from years living in Iran and Pakistan to find themselves homeless.
NATO also delivered an estimated 1,000 blankets, coats, socks, mittens and hats to a refugee camp in Kabul.
