A total of 55 workers were buried under snow and debris after the avalanche hit a construction camp near a village on the border with Tibet in Chamoli district on Friday.

Officials said army doctors at the site had performed life-saving surgery on those critically injured.

Uttarakhand state chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said “relief and rescue operations have been accelerated” with the weather in the area clearing up.

“Every effort is being made to safely evacuate all the workers trapped in the snow as soon as possible,” Dhami said on X.

Mana village, which shares a border with Tibet, was deserted after residents moved to lower altitudes to escape the extreme weather, The Indian Express newspaper reported.

Avalanches and landslides are common in the upper reaches of the Himalayas, especially during the winter season.

Scientists have said that climate change spurred by humans burning fossil fuels is making weather events more severe, super-charged by warmer oceans.

The increased pace of development in the fragile Himalayan regions has also heightened fears about the fallout from deforestation and construction.

In 2021, nearly 100 people died in Uttarakhand after a huge glacier chunk fell into a river, triggering flash floods.

Devastating monsoon floods and landslides in 2013 killed 6,000 people and led to calls for a review of development projects in the state.