ISLAMABAD: Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) personnel were able to partially open the road from Naran Valley to Kaghan — which was blocked due a spell of heavy snowfall — enabling the first convoy of 70 stranded vehicles to reach Kaghan from Naran Monday.

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said the operation was carried out on instructions of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Raheel Sharif.

"Army rescue teams including doctors have been moved for Naran to carry out rescue operation," said an ISPR statement.

It said another 100 tourists trapped on Battakundi-Naran road were rescued by FWO last night.

FWO troops, equipped with heavy machinery, are busy in removing heavy snow from various roads in Naran Valley including the main Kaghan-Naran road, it said.

A spell of heavy snowfall paralysed Naran Valley, one of the popular tourist spots in the country, on Sunday. Over 1,000 tourists were stranded in the valley and long lines of cars and other vehicles were there on roads blocked by piles of snow.

Many tourists had traveled to the area, popular for its natural beauty, when they were caught off guard by the unprecedented snowfall.

“More than 1,200 people have so far been evacuated but still some 800 to 1,000 people are stranded there and rescue work is ongoing,” Najeeb Ur Rehman, the top police official in Mansehra district, told AFP.

Officials said the town of Naran was the worst affected, receiving more than three feet of snow since early Sunday.

One coal miner was killed late Sunday when a mine collapsed due to a glacier break-off in Babusar area, some 40 kilometres from Naran.

Know more: Kaghan glacier break-off: One miner dead, nine others injured

Authorities rescued 15 other coal miners trapped by the collapse, Rehman said.

The snowfall has also damaged the power lines and some small bridges.

Rehman said the first priority had been to evacuate drivers stranded on the roads by the snow, and that authorities would now concentrate on extracting tourists trapped in their hotels.

The first snow does not usually hit Pakistan's northern areas until early December, with officials saying this was the earliest recorded snowfall in 40 years.