Published by: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, March 6th 1996

By Jeffrey Parker

BEIJING March 4, (Reuter) - A deadly blizzard hitting western China's highland pastures has spread from Qinghai province to neighboring Sichuan, prompting new appeals Monday for world help as the threat of famine mounted.

At least 60,000 ethnic Tibetan herders in Qinghai province and Tibet face starvation in storms that have wiped out 750,000 head of livestock, mainly cattle, goats and alpine yaks that supply both food and a livelihood, officials said.

Official reports from Sichuan -- where 48 herders were reported to have died in January storms -- said new blizzards had struck that province's largely ethnic Tibetan highlands, killing some 140,000 head of livestock.

A relief team in Sichuan's ethnic Tibetan Ganzi region said more than 25,000 people had used up their emergency grain and 1,200 families had lost all their livestock, a provincial spokesman told Reuters from Sichuan's capital Chengdu.

"More than 10,000 people have been injured by snow. In the worst-hit areas half of the livestock has died," he said.

"Snowfall is four times more than last year and temperatures have dropped to minus 45 degrees Celsius (-49 F). The snowland is littered with cattle carcases."

The nomadic herders could not consume the animals' flesh for fear of disease, officials said. Yak prices had doubled and it would take a decade for herds to recover.

Emergency food and other aid, including three tons of medical supplies and clothing donated by Japan, has been trucked into the affected Sichuan prefecture of Ganzi, the spokesman said.

Western relief workers in Qinghai's capital Xining said new snow was falling as of late last week and the danger of famine, frostbite and death had spread into Sichuan.

"We appeal to international medical organisations to help," said Serge Depotter, leader of a Belgian unit of Medicins sans Frontieres coordinating the relief effort in Xining.

Medicins sans Frontieres had raised $1 million for Qinghai relief and needed at least that much again for Sichuan.

"We don't expect any change before April as the snow was still falling when we left Yushu last week. Local people I talked to...said they had only enough food for one week," Depotter said.

The first trucks of a western-financed aid convoy set off Sunday from Xining carrying badly needed medicine to Yushu but more cash was needed to hire trucks for the difficult 500 mile journey, Depotter said.

"We have sent medical aid yesterday evening and plan to send eight million yuan ($964,000) of aid, including barley and blankets, this week," he said.

REUTER