Between February 16 and 18, parts of southern Xinjiang
Uygur Autonomous Region were hit by torrential snow. In Sangzhu
Village in Pixian County, snow cover was as thick as 70
centimeters, killing livestock and causing houses to
collapse.?
Heavy snow also affected the cities of Hetian and Kashgar.
According to local administrative departments, by February 21 about
14,000 livestock in Hetian had died, 12,000 of them trapped in
remote mountains, and 245 houses collapsed. In Kashgar, 19 villages
and about 30,000 animals were short of food supplies because
mountain passes had been sealed off.
In the central province of Hunan,
87 villages in Miluo City experienced rarely seen damage that could
result in losses totaling nearly 100 million yuan (US$12 million),
the Hunan Daily reported.
Food and fuel are in short supply for 1,000 local families due
to snow and ice cutting them off. About 14,000 houses have
collapsed and 800 animals such as pigs and cows have died.
Ice, 70-80 mm thick, has covered many 220-kilovolt and
500-kilovolt mains cables in the capital, Changsha, as well as in
the cities of Changde, Yiyang, Xiangtan, Loudi, Yueyang, Shaoyang
and Huihua. Lots of wire poles and towers have collapsed, and the
damage is considered the most serious, in terms of duration and
cover of ice, to hit the province since 1954.
Local governments have tried modern techniques to mitigate
damage in Anhui Province. The provincial government is estimated to
have saved 200 million yuan (US$24 million) last year by using such
means as artificial rain.
From early February, ice in the upper reaches of the Yellow
River begins to melt and the flow of water in lower reaches
increases. In the early morning of February 18, in the area of the
Hukou Waterfall in Shanxi Province, dykes and warning boards were
washed away. More than 20 shops, houses and hotels were flooded,
with economic losses reaching more than 1 million yuan.
Meteorologists say that it should become warmer in most parts of
China today and tomorrow - good news for people who have been
living in unseasonably cold conditions for the past few days.
The temperature in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning
Province, reached a low of minus 20 degrees Celsius early
yesterday morning, but is expected to stop dropping, according to
the Liaoshen Evening News.
(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency,
China.org.cn?February 22, 2005)
