Shimla, Sep 17 - Nearly 150 tourists, including foreigners, are stranded in Himachal Pradesh's Spiti Valley since early last week due to snowfall and land slides. The rescue efforts by the administration have not succeeded so far.

The tourists, including 96 foreigners - most of them from Israel - are stranded at Kaza town in Lahaul and Spiti district after the snows and landslips caused closure of the roads linking Kaza to Manali and Shimla towns.

Superintendent of Police (Lahaul and Spiti) S.R. Rana said the tourists could not be evacuated as the main road leading to the Kunzum Pass is closed to traffic near Koksar, about 100 km from Manali.

'Most of the landslides have been cleared. Now, work is on to clear some of the blockades near Koksar,' he said. 'The entire landslips are likely to be cleared by Friday evening.'

In a frantic email to IANS, Byram Doongaji, vice-president of Godrej, said: 'We are still stuck in Kaza! Yesterday (Wednesday), based on information given by the ADC's (additional deputy commissioner) office, we set out for Manali.'

'However, contrary to the information that the road through the Kunzum Pass and Rohtang Pass is open, we could not go beyond Kunzum and had to return,' Doongaji wrote.