KATMANDU: Nepalese officials closed a section of a popular Himalayan trekking route on Sunday after rescuers, overwhelmed with last week’s snowstorms that killed 39 hikers, had to bring to safety new climbers who set out on the same mountain trails where the blizzards struck.

The dead from the blizzards and avalanches that hit the upper section of the Annapurna Circuit in northern Nepal included foreign trekkers, local guides and villagers. Most among the hundreds of trekkers who had been stuck in the snow have been brought to safety, and government official Yama Bahadur Chokhyal said rescue helicopters were winding down flights.

Hopes faded for survivors of one of worst mountain disasters as villagers joined an intensive search by troops and government officials for as many as 40 people missing.

More than 500 people have been rescued from a route popular with foreign adventure tourists that circles Annapurna, the world’s tenth-tallest peak, among them 230 foreigners.

Rescuers turned to villagers familiar with the rugged, snow-clad terrain in the hunt for trekkers stranded in isolated areas after the tail end of a cyclone that hit neighboring India last weekend triggered the snow and avalanches.

“We are not clear where the missing people are and whether they are safe or not safe,” Yadav Koirala, the chief of Nepal’s disaster management authority, told Reuters in Katmandu, the capital.

“We can only hope and pray that they are not dead.”

Since Wednesday, rescue teams have recovered 30 bodies and identified nine more from the air.