Avalanche Kills 70 in Northern Village

Snow rushed down a mountain in the northern part of the country, crushing a village and killing 70 people, a spokesman for the military alliance that controls the area said. The avalanche Saturday night nearly destroyed the village of Darbandi, about 50 miles north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, the spokesman said by telephone. Soldiers using picks and shovels to dig through the snow found 50 survivors and worked to find more, he said. Dozens of people were missing. Afghanistan has been battered by recent natural disasters. A Feb. 4 earthquake in northeastern Takhar province killed as many as 5,000 people and left an additional 30,000 homeless. Flash floods killed 30 more people later last month.