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)