Published by: World Tibet Network News. Saturday, March 2, 1996

source: TIN News Update / 3 March, 1996 full/ ISSN 1355-3313

As a foreign aid convoy set off today to take supplies to 60,000 Tibetan nomads trapped by weeks of blizzards in China's Qinghai province, concern is growing about conditions in Sershul and Serta counties in the neighbouring province of Sichuan, where at least another 25,000 nomads stranded by weeks of blizzards are running out of food.

A Tibetan relief group in the area, formerly a remote part of north-eastern Tibet, reported last night that 25,111 people in Sershul county have now run out of grain, and 1,200 families - about 6,000 people - had lost all their livestock.

"The weather is bad and it was still snowing in the area earlier this week", said Tsewang Nyima, relief co-ordinator for the Tibet Development Fund, a non-governmental organisation started in Beijing by the late Panchen Lama nine years ago, which is helping co-ordinate foreign relief efforts. The meat from the dead cattle was mostly inedible and some people were moving down to lower areas and begging from farmers, he reported after talking with Tibetans who arrived from Sershul on Thursday.

Belgian relief workers running the rescue operation in the Yushu area of southern Qinghai also expressed concern that supplies delivered three weeks ago by the Chinese authorities to Sershul and Serta may be exhausted. No independent relief workers have yet been able to reach the two counties in Sichuan, which are both mountainous areas in the prefecture of Kantse, called Ganzi in Chinese.

The last public report about conditions in Sershul, known as Shiqu or Serxu in Chinese, was on 9th February, when the official news agency Xinhua reported that the Chinese airforce had dropped 15 tons of food in the area for some 1,100 local snow-stranded herdsmen. "The Chengdu Military Command Area has helped these 1,100 people resume their normal lives, and has helped save more than 30,000 head of livestock," said the report. At the daily rate of 600 gms per person estimated by relief workers, this would have allowed them to survive for three and a half weeks.

A month ago the Sichuan provincial authorities allocated 500 tonnes of grain and 11 tonnes of clothing for nomads in Sershul and neighbouring Serta, but it is not known if officials were able to deliver the supplies, which by now would have been used up.

Mr Nyima, speaking by phone from the Qinghai capital of Xining, said funds were urgently needed. He is hoping to reach Sershul in about five days, together with an assessment team from the Belgium section of Medecins sans Frontiers (MSF), which is already running a US $1 million rescue operation to help 60,000 nomads stranded in Qinghai.

"The point is that in the Sichuan area the same problem is occurring for people who are equally important," said Serge Depotter, who is running the MSF team in Xining. "We plan to have a new mission there in the coming days and it will be more then one million dollars that we will need to cover that area", he said.

Tonight the Tibet Foundation, a London based charity, began raising money for the Sershul operation, which will need at least 120,000 (US $182,000) to enable the nomads to survive for one more month, allowing a reduced daily ration of 400 gms of grain per person plus two blankets per family.

"After that a minimum 580,000 (US $880,000) will be needed immediately to replenish the livestock, even if each family is given only 10 sheep and 4 yaks," said Phuntsog Wangyal, a Tibetan living in London for the last 20 years who runs the Tibet Foundation. Mr Wangyal, who was born in the area, revisited his homeplace last year and is helping to build a school there. There has still been no news of current conditions in the neighbouring county of Serta - the name means Golden horse in Tibetan - but Chinese officials said a month ago that a total of 48 people had died and 110,000 cattle had frozen to death in the two counties of Sershul and Serta as a result of the blizzards. Attempts to contact relevant officials in Chengdu to get more information had been unsuccessful, said Mr Nyima. The Chinese and Tibetan New Year holiday began on 19th February.

- Qinghai Convoy Sets Off for Jyekundo -

Chinese and international attention has focussed on Yushu prefecture, called Jyekundo in Tibetan, a group of five counties in Qinghai province where a much larger number of people are affected by the storms, described by locals as the worst for 100 years. Almost all of the affected population are Tibetan nomads who depend on their animals for food, clothing and tents.

An estimated 700,000 cattle have frozen to death in the Yushu area, where 16,000 people are suffering from frostbite and 9,000 from snow-blindness, according to a Reuters report on Thursday. There have been 48 blizzards in the area since October and by mid-December one metre of snow had already fallen and temperatures had dropped to minus 42 degrees Celsius.

A month ago the Chinese authorities, with help from 2,000 soldiers and 100 military vehicles and planes, carried out five airlifts in the Yushu area, delivering 260 tonnes of grain, 52 tonnes of fuel, and 100,000 quilts. These had been bought with donations of $690,000 from within China, including $15,600 from the members of the Communist Party's Central Committee, as well as a grant of $40,000 from the Canadian government.

Those supplies have now run out and the team from the MSF Belgium is setting off today with the first of 94 trucks to take 1,200 tonnes of barley, medicine and other supplies which it hopes will allow the nomads to survive for another month. The convoy left from Xining on the 800 km journey south west to the counties of Jyekundo and Dzadoe (called Yushu and Zadoi in Chinese), where 45% of the affected nomads live.

Yesterday the 3 person relief team were still waiting for money to arrive so they could hire all the trucks which will take the food to the nearest accessible roads. Horses will be hired to carry the supplies to the higher nomad camps, which lie at between 3,500 and 5,500 metres altitude.

The team returned from a week-long assessment mission in Jyekundo (Yushu) on 20th February. "Along the valley we saw several hundreds of dead animal bodies", said Serge Depotter, speaking by telephone from Xining. "There is no doubt that there is a danger that people will die", he said.

"People explained that they had enough food for one week, maximum ten days", said M. Depotter. "When we asked the question what are you going to do after it runs out, there was a kind of smile on their face, saying we don't know", he added. The five counties in the Yushu area cover 267,000 square kilometres and have a population of 200,000 people, 95% of them Tibetan nomads.

On the day the MSF team left the area the temperature was dropping and snow was falling. Reports on Friday from Beijing say that the snow is starting to melt in the lower valleys but that cattle will still die because there was not enough rain last year to produce grass.

The prefectural administration in Yushu is providing transport for 200 tonnes of supplies, with the rest to be paid by MSF. The Qinghai province authorities are helping the aid workers to purchase supplies at the cheapest prices. "Any international assistance to the snow-stricken areas is welcome," said a statement from the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Beijing, according to Reuters yesterday.

Qinghai government officials said yesterday that it will take 8-10 years and cost 100 million yuan ($12 million) to rehabilitate the Yushu economy once the snows thaw, which is not expected until July. "At this moment MSF Belgium is concentrating its efforts on the emergency problems. The question of who is going to replace the cattle needs to be discussed later", said M. Depotter. The Sichuan authorities estimate that they will need 20 million yuan ($2.5 million) to replenish stocks in their area after the emergency is over.

Local officials in Yushu and Qinghai have been active in relief efforts, but Chinese media coverage of the disaster has been low key. On 6th February Jiang Chunyun, one of China's vice-premiers, "contacted the blizzard-ravaged Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai, to enquire about disaster conditions" and two days later Li Baoku, a vice-minister at the Ministry of Civil Affairs, travelled to Yushu to "convey central authorities' concern and help direct disaster-relief efforts there to solve practical problems for the people." [end]