SEVERE winter weather has claimed more lives as avalanches triggered by heavy snowfall killed 55 people in Pakistan-administered Kashmir while 15 died in neighboring Afghanistan, officials said yesterday.

The latest deaths raise the two countries’ overall death toll from the severe weather to 126 since Sunday.

The disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir was the worst-affected area, with 55 deaths in the past 24 hours, said Waseem Uddin, a spokesman for Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority.

Among those fatalities, 41 died in a single avalanche in the Neelum Valley, while 14 people died elsewhere in the region. Avalanches are common in Kashmir, which is divided between Pakistan and India and claimed by both in its entirety.

Earlier yesterday, Ahmad Raza Qadri, the minister for the disaster management authority in Kashmir, said they had declared a state of emergency in the affected areas.

Military helicopters were being used to evacuate people as authorities struggle to reopen highways and reach people cut off by heavy snowfall and avalanches in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.(SD-Agencies)