Reports of fresh snowfall came in from the hilly areas of Jammu and Kashmir Thursday amid warnings of more avalanches, which have caused most of the 300 deaths in the state.

Seventy people are still missing from Waltengo Nar village in Anantnag district, 76 km from here, which has been devastated by the snow. The village had a population of 360, of whom 200 have died. Ninety percent of the houses are still buried under snow.

Those who were able to reach the village, located in the Pir Panjal mountain range, received complaints from locals that the so-called "war footing" rescue operations that the state government claims to have launched are nowhere to be seen.

It is only the locals and security personnel camps in the vicinity that have been rescuing people and retrieving bodies. The villagers have been burying the bodies in mass graves.

There was mild rainfall through the night in the plains of the Kashmir Valley. Rescue operations have been halted temporarily.

For the past fortnight, Kashmir has not seen any sunshine. But the sky in summer capital Srinagar showed some promise with the rains stopping and the clouds tending to break.

The Srinagar-Jammu national highway continued to be blocked for the 13th day Thursday.

The central government has sanctioned Rs.500 million ($11 million) as immediate relief to the state to meet the challenges posed by the weather. The state has also been asked to utilise another Rs.740 million out of security related expenditure.

An inter-ministerial core group, headed by A.K. Rastogi, secretary in the central home ministry, has been constituted that will convene two meetings daily to review the situation, officials said.