Officials said on Saturday that at least 22 people, including 10 children, died after being trapped in their vehicles overnight during a heavy snowstorm as temperatures plummeted in a popular mountain resort town in Pakistan.

According to officials, the majority of the victims died of hypothermia. According to fellow police officer Atiq Ahmed, one of them was an Islamabad police officer and seven other members of his family.

Overnight on Friday and early Saturday, more than 4 feet (1 metre) of snow fell in the Murree Hills resort area, trapping thousands of cars on the roads, according to interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.

According to Umar Maqbool, assistant commissioner for the town of Murree, the snow was so bad that heavy equipment brought in to clear it got stuck during the night. The temperature dropped to minus eight degrees Celsius.

Officials enlisted the help of paramilitary forces and a special military mountain unit. Thousands of vehicles had been rescued from the snow by late Saturday, but more than a thousand remained stuck, according to Ahmed.

By late Saturday, most roads leading to the area’s resorts had been cleared of snow, and military troops were working to clear the rest, Maqbool said. The military also converted army-run schools into relief camps, where the rescued tourists were given shelter and food.

While people were trapped in their snowed-in vehicles, emergency personnel distributed food and blankets, but many died of hypothermia.

Others may have died from carbon monoxide poisoning as a result of running their car heaters for long periods of time, according to Abdur Rehman, a physician with the rescue services. According to Rehman, the death toll included 10 men, 10 children, and two women as of late Saturday.

In one case, a husband and wife, as well as their two children, died in their vehicle. In another, he said, four young friends died together. Murree, located 46 kilometres north of Islamabad, is a popular winter resort town that attracts over a million visitors each year. In the winter, snow often blocks the streets leading into town.

Last weekend, authorities warned that too many vehicles were attempting to enter Murree, but this did not deter hordes of daytrippers from the capital.

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