Suzan Fraser, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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ANKARA, Turkey - An avalanche slammed into a group of Turkish hikers on a trip to a remote mountain plateau on Sunday, dragging them more than 500 metres into a valley and fatally burying 10 of them.

The members of a skiing and mountaineering club were taking part in an annual winter sports celebration on 2,200-metre Mount Zigana.

Seventeen were hiking single-file when the avalanche swept them away.

"It must have been 15 or 20 minutes after we set off on our walk," 61-year-old Kasim Keles told reporters from his hospital bed.

"We were walking along a single line. I was toward the middle of the line. We looked up and there was nowhere to run. The snow took us and dragged us along.

"The snow dragged me down into a valley before it stopped," he said.

"My right hand was stuck beneath me, with my left hand I cleared my face; I began to breath and called for help," Keles said.

He said he was saved by a fellow hiker who escaped unharmed and dug him out of the snow with her hands.

Faruk Ozak, Turkey's minister in charge of public works and housing who visited the site, said two other hikers were injured while five others escaped the slide.

Ozak said search and rescue efforts were continuing in case anyone else was still buried in the snow.

Rescue workers could be seen probing with long rods and digging through snow with shovels.

Military and private mountain rescue teams assisted by sniffer dogs carried out a search for the missing that was called off after sunset, private CNN-Turk television reported.

The mountain straddles Trabzon, the hikers' home province, and the neighbouring province of Gumushane. The Zigana tunnel - one of Turkey's longest mountain passes - connects the two.

Reports said another group of some 15 hikers was also on a walking tour of the mountain but were not hit by the slide.

Television footage showed soldiers and villagers struggling through the snow to carry a person lying on a makeshift stretcher.

"We were walking and before we realized what was going on, the avalanche came on us," Ural Ayar, one of the survivors, told NTV television by telephone.

"The snow dragged our friends along and unfortunately they were buried," he said.