Published by: World Tibet Network News Wednesday February 28, 1996

HONG KONG Feb. 27 (AP) -- Thousands of Tibetan nomads face starvation after prolonged winter snows killed the cattle that supply all their needs, from food to skins for their tents, an aid worker said Tuesday.

The snowfall, with temperatures as low as minus-40, was concentrated in Yushu, a district of 200,000 people in western China's Qinghai province, said Serge Depotter of the Doctors Without Borders aid group, who visited the area last week.

Yushu is 1,200 miles southwest of Beijing, high on the Tibetan plateau.

"There are 25,000 people who lost their livestock and over 55,000 people who lost 80 percent of their livestock," he said in a telephone interview from the provincial capital, Xining.

Some 700,000 animals have died, he said.

Depotter added that 16,000 people are suffering from frostbite and another 12,000 have become snowblind. Some are too poor to afford treatment, he said.

Food flown into the area in January and February will begin running out next week and unless more arrives soon, "we must fear a human catastrophe," he said.