Heavy snowfall, rain and freezing weather have claimed nine lives and injured two others in Afghanistan over the past 48 hours, spokesman for the national disaster authority Mullah Janan Saeq said Thursday.

According to Xinhua, the freezing weather with downpours and snowstorms has struck Badghis, Badakhshan, Faryab, Jawzjan, Kandahar, Helmand and Sari Pul provinces over the past two days and also killed countless cattle in some areas.

About 1,000 cattle have died due to the cold spell and snowfall in the northern Faryab province.

Security forces have rescued 42 people who were stranded in snowstorms on a road in Aqcha district of Jawzjan province, provincial police spokesman Abdul Sattar Halimi said.

Heavy snowfall, chilly weather and heavy rain have also caused road blockade in some provinces as well as in the Salang Pass -- the essential highway connecting the national capital Kabul to nine northern provinces onward to central Asian states.

The Afghan meteorological department has predicated a snowfall and scattered rains along with flash floods in 32 out of the country's 34 provinces over the next 24 hours.