Indian army soldiers stand guard on top of a ski slope Gulmarg, India, in 2008. An avalanche there on Monday killed at least 17 soldiers. (Mukhtar Khan/Associated Press)

A massive avalanche hit an Indian army training centre at a ski resort town in Kashmir Monday, killing at least 17 soldiers and trapping nearly 50 others.

Fifteen injured soldiers from the High Altitude Warfare School needing emergency medical care were found during a search and rescue operation, said army spokesman Col. Vineet Sood. The school is located in Gulmarg about 50 kilometres northwest of Srinagar, the main city of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The avalanche hit the army's facility at about 11 a.m. and swept the soldiers away during a training session, Sood said. It was the worst avalanche in the area in many years, he said.

About 400 people, including 30 civilian workers, were at the training centre, but the avalanche hit only one portion of the facility, Sood said.

"We have activated all resources to rescue the buried soldiers," Sood said, adding incessant snow and rain were hampering rescue operations.

Joint rescue teams of police, army and tourism officials had reached the spot where the avalanche struck, said Farooq Ahmed, a top police officer in Kashmir, but he warned casualties could rise.

G.M. Dar, a tourist official in the area, told The Associated Press that the roughly 400 tourists who were skiing in Gulmarg at the time were safe. The avalanche hit the army centre, located on a high slope, about three kilometres from the main town.

Frequent rain and heavy snowfall often trigger avalanches and landslides in Kashmir, blocking roads and cutting off tourist resorts like Gulmarg. Gulmarg is also close to the Line of Control, a highly militarized ceasefire line dividing the Himalayan region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

The claim over Kashmir has caused two wars between the archrivals since they became independent from Britain in 1947. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are posted along either side of the Line of Control.

Last year in April, an avalanche hit an Indian army post in a separate region close to the de facto border with Pakistan, killing seven soldiers and injuring at least eight others.