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    At least 23 rescue workers have been killed by the second of two avalanches within hours in Turkey.

    The rescuers, who included military police and volunteers, were hit by a wall of snow on a mountain road as they searched for missing people following an earlier deadly avalanche in the eastern province of Van.

    Some 300 emergency workers had been sent to the road near the town of Bahcesehir to look for survivors after the first avalanche struck late on Tuesday, killing at least five people.

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    Mehmet Emin Bilmez, Van province's governor, said 23 bodies had been recovered from a mass of snow on a steep slope following the second avalanche at noon on Wednesday. The victims included eight military police officers, three local government guards, three firefighters and nine civilian volunteers.

    Thirty emergency workers were either rescued or escaped from under the snow following the avalanche, Turkey's interior ministry said. It gave no information on their conditions.

    Rescuers were searching for others still believed to be trapped. TV footage showed dozens of people using shovels and pick-axes to dig into the snow and at least three overturned vehicles at the bottom of a hill.

    The rescue operation was being hampered by heavy snowfall, fog and strong winds. One rescue vehicle was pulled out from under 16ft of snow, according to Turkey's interior minister, Suleyman Soylu.

    The first avalanche buried a snow-clearing vehicle and a minibus. Seven passengers survived along with the driver, who was reportedly trapped for 25 minutes before managing to break a window of the vehicle and escape.

    The second avalanche struck as workers were searching for two people who remained missing following the first.

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