An avalanche left 18 people dead and 12 injured on Monday night in the district of Jirgital, 250 km northeast of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, the Ministry of Emergency Situations said.
"This happened at night between 30 and 31 of January. Seven houses near the mountain were covered by snow and the rescue operation finished today. Eighteen people died, 20 people were saved, including 12 people with severe frostbite who are now in a hospital," ministry spokesman Nazokatshoh Saiorabekov said on Wednesday.
More than 90 percents of ex-Soviet Tajikistan is covered by high mountains. Natural disasters caused US $33 million worth of damage and killed 47 in 2005.
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