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

During this winter, several Tibetan areas outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region, were struck by two major natural disasters which have resulted in many deaths and massive destruction.

A. SNOW STORMS

According to The London Guardian (February 28, 1996) "The worst snow storms for a century are endangering the lives of tens of thousands of Tibetan nomads by devastating the herds of yak and sheep they depend upon for food, clothing and fuel."

Doctors Without Border/Medecins Sans Frontiers reports that the temperatures in these areas, which are located high on the Tibetan plateau, have dropped to as low as -47 degrees Celsius, killing more than three quarters of the livestock.

The epicenter of what aid workers warn could be a humanitarian catastrophe is located in an area known as the Yushu and Jyekundo districts in the Tibetan provinces of Amdo and Kham.

Yushu is an area of 104,000 sq miles inhabited by about 200,000 people. Villages are littered with frozen carcasses. The limited food resources currently available will not even last a week.

Officials estimate that 25,000 people have lost all their cattle, and a further 55,000 people have lost more than 80% of them. At least 700,000 yaks and sheep are believed to have died.

Over 16,000 of the nomads are suffering from frosbite and another about 12,000 from snow blindness, a condition in which the cornea is damaged by the sun's glare.

The district of Ganzi in the neighboring Sichuan Province has also been badly hit. A United Nations report confirms that 48 people have been killed.

As the regions affected lack facilities to cope with such abnormal conditions, the people's traditional lifestyle of cattle herding has been destroyed. IMMEDIATE EMERGENCY SUPPORT IS NEEDED.

B. EARTHQUAKE

An earthquake which measured 7.0 on the Richter scale stuck on Feb. 3, 1996, in rugged areas about 250 miles Southwest of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province.

The press has reported that the deadliest earthquake to hit China has killed 240 people, injured over 14,000 and left hundreds of thousands homeless. Houses continue to collapse as after shocks jolt the area.

About one fourth of land Area in Yunnan province is inhabited by Tibetan people. The epicenter of this earthquake is in Dechen Autonomous Prefecture.

Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontiers has sent supplies and emergency relief workers to the devastated areas in Amdo and Kham. In addition, the Belgian government donated $500,000 and the Tibet Fund has donated $5,000.

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