Published by: World Tibet Network News, 96/03/31

BEIJING, March 30 (Reuter) - A huge avalanche has killed 56 people on a treacherous highway in Tibet, Chinese-backed Hong Kong newspapers said on Saturday.

A slide of snow 100 metres (330 ft) long and 20 metres (66 ft) wide triggered the avalanche early last Sunday, sending tens of thousands of tonnes of snow crashing on to a highway in the Bomi region of eastern Tibet, the Ta Kung Pao newspaper said.

It said the avalanche, which followed heavy snowstorms in the area, trapped about 500 people and killed 56 immediately.

Avalanches of such a scale had been rare in the last 40 years on the highway, which runs from the mountainous Himalayan region to China's western Sichuan province, the Wen Wei Po newspaper said.

More than 1,000 soldiers had been dispatched to the scene, where they helped to rescue some 400 people and took 54 injured to hospital, it said.

The soldiers recovered about 20 vehicles and were able to help reopen the highway to normal traffic, it said. The highway, China's main communications artery into eastern Tibet, winds through dramatic and sometimes dangerous mountain passes on its way from Lhasa to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.