Eight people were killed and multiple others remained missing late on Wednesday after an avalanche struck a roadway in mountainous Tibet, municipal authorities said, according to state media.

Xinhua news agency reported that the snowslide occurred at the exit of a tunnel on a highway leading from Nyingchi city in Medog County to Mainling County in southeastern Tibet.

Municipal officials in Nyingchi, at 3,040 metres above sea level, said the avalanche trapped people in their vehicles and that a rescue operation was underway for the missing, Xinhua reported.

It was not clear how many people might be missing from the incident, which occurred on Tuesday evening.

The Ministry of Emergency Management sent a disaster response team on Wednesday to Tibet and called for full-scale efforts in the rescue as well as the bid to verify how many people remained stranded, according to the Global Times newspaper.