Kashmir avalanches kill 22: police

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2008

SRINAGAR, India (AFP) — Avalanches triggered by the worst snowfall in years killed 22 people and left 15 missing in Indian Kashmir, police said on Saturday, as hundreds of stranded people were evacuated.

Kashmir, where a revolt against Indian rule has raged for decades, has been blanketed by snow for the past six days, cutting off the region's main highway to the outside world.

The avalanche victims, who all died late on Friday, included five children and their 42-year-old mother, whose house was buried in southern Kapran village.

Further south in Doda district, five women and a man from another family were killed when a snowslide flattened their house. Others killed included a woman, her teenaged son and daughter in northern Gurez district.

"The...