“Due to the falling rocks, about 25 of our fellow citizens were killed and eight were injured,” Janan Sayegh, a spokesman for the ministry, said in a video sent to reporters.

He added, speaking to AFP, that the toll could rise.

“It is still snowing.

Rescue teams are on their way and the death toll may rise,” Jamiullah Hashimi, head of Nuristan province’s information and culture department, also estimated.

The fall of the rocks damaged the village of Nakre in the Tatin Valley.

Houses were found under rocks and snow, resulting in about twenty being destroyed or severely damaged, Hasimi explained.

Nuristan is a province bordering Pakistan.

Much of the province is covered by forests and also by the mountains of the Hindu Kush range.

Every year in the mountainous north of Afghanistan there are avalanches or landslides, which prove even more deadly as the authorities do not have the necessary equipment to rescue trapped people.

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This year the snow is long overdue in Afghanistan, a country used to particularly harsh winters in its mountainous regions, another indication of the effects of climate change.

In mid-January, Kabul had yet to see snowfall, at least a month and a half later than normal.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, after decades of war, and is particularly hard hit by climate change.

Half the country’s population lives below the poverty line and 15 million people are food insecure, according to the World Bank.