Television footage showed the passengers, mostly university students, greeted by distraught relatives at a road maintenance centre in the snow-bound Ovit mountains, to which they marched in the company of alpinists.

The bus was stranded amid blizzards in the province of Rize on Friday evening, at a height of about 2,600 metres (8,530 feet), as avalanches blocked the road in both directions.

Two army helicopters were sent to rescue the passengers Saturday, but fearing new avalanches, officials ruled against their landing in the area, Anatolia said.

Shortly after midnight, members of a local mountaineering club reached the bus and led the passengers to safety after a two-hour march in the morning, it said.

Officials lashed out at the bus company, saying the driver had breached a ban on using the mountain road at night.

Bad weather claimed four lives in the neighbouring provinces of Giresun and Trabzon Saturday when landslides unleashed by torrential rains destroyed several houses.