Armed police on Wednesday saved 128 people trapped by blizzards in northern Tibet Autonomous Region for more than one day. No deaths were reported but many suffered frostbite, according to local police sources.

All the people trapped, in 45 vans and cars, were safely returned under the escort of over 70 armed policemen, officials with the local armed police unit said on Wednesday.

Heavy snow fell in the northern Ngari Prefecture, bordering Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, late on Monday night, trapping the 45 vehicles on the Tibet-Xinjiang road.

By early Tuesday, the temperature had fallen to minus 18 degrees Celsius in the region, which is 6,700 meters above sea level. Many people were frostbitten and one traveler from Beijing had slipped into coma, the police said.

The unconscious traveler was rushed to the nearest hospital by the police and is no longer in a critical condition, the source said.

Local police warned that it was dangerous to travel at night as excessive rainfall this summer has caused many landslides and mudflows.

Police have rescued nearly 2,000 people in the last two months in northern Tibet.

(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2006)