Azerbaijan: three dead in avalanche

Three people have been killed in an avalanche caused by unusually heavy snowfalls in southern Azerbaijan.

The state emergency commission said all three were residents of a mountain village in the Astara region.

It said the snow both in Astara and Lenkoran region, near the Iranian border, had reached a depth of one meter.

Power lines had been destroyed, and roads to the Azeri capital, Baku, were blocked.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service