Nepalese army personnel carry a victim rescued from the avalanche at Thorang-La in Annapurna Region. At least 20 people, including eight foreign hikers and a group of yak herders, were

killed in Nepal by unseasonal blizzards and avalanches triggered by the tail of cyclone Hudhud, officials said on Wednesday. Rescue officials said the death toll could rise as dozens of 

other foreigners and locals who had been trekking were out of contact due to poor communication links and could have been caught in blizzards. Two climbers from Slovakia and three Nepalese

guides were also reported missing. The hikers' deaths come during the peak trekking season in Nepal, home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountain peaks, including Mount

said Baburam Bhandari, governor of the district of Mustang, where the incident took place. Bhandari said the group perished in a blizzard. "We have rescued five German, five Polish and

four Israeli trekkers who were trapped in the snowfall early on Wednesday," Bhandari told Reuters by telephone, without giving details. One German tourist fractured his leg, he said.

Police said eight Nepalis had died in Mustang, an apple growing area bordering Tibet, which is about 150 km (93 miles) northwest of the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, and is popular among 

foreign hikers. Separately, in the neighbouring district of Manang, four Canadian hikers and an Indian national were killed in an avalanche, the district's most senior bureaucrat,

Devendra Lamichhane, told Reuters. "The pilot of a rescue helicopter spotted the bodies in snow," Lamichhane said. "But it is not possible to retrieve their bodies because it

is snowing heavily in the area now." Three yak herders were killed after being swept away by a separate avalanche at Nar village in Manang, officials said. Two climbers from Slovakia

and three Nepalese guides were also missing as night fell after an avalanche near the base camp of Dhaulagiri late on Tuesday, tourism department officials said. Dhaulagiri is the

world's eighth-highest peak, at 8,167 metres (26,795 feet). Army helicopters took 14 injured survivors to local hospitals. Some of the survivors were flown to Kathmandu. Nepal's

tourism industry is still recovering from the aftershocks of an ice avalanche that struck the lower reaches of Mount Everest in April, killing 16 sherpa guides in the worst disaster in the

history of the world's highest peak. More than a tenth of the nearly 800,000 tourists who visited Nepal in 2013 went hiking or mountain climbing, providing a key revenue stream for the

aid-dependent nation, which relies on income from tourism for 4 percent of its gross domestic product.