"I can confirm that 43 people have been killed in Ghoryan alone," Agha Mohammad Sidiqi, the head of the government's emergency response committee, told AFP, referring to a district in western Herat province.

"Their bodies have been recovered and most of them are shepherds. They died mostly in avalanches," Sidiqi said.

Seventeen other people are missing in the same area, he added.

The deaths brought to more than 70 the number of people killed by the freezing weather in several western provinces over the past week. Thousands of head of livestock have also died.

Constant snowfalls, the heaviest in years, have blocked roads linking major cities to isolated villages, Sidiqi said.

"Most roads leading to districts and remote communities have been blocked and this has made it even more difficult to reach those communities to help them," he added.