Published by: World Tibet Network News Thursday, December 25, 1997

BEIJING, December 25, 1997 (AP) Heavy snows and severe cold weather have stranded herdsmen and affected some 260,000 people in remote areas of Tibet, an official report said today.

No deaths have been reported so far from temperatures dipping to 22 degrees below zero and early season snows in northeastern Tibet, the Xinhua News Agency said.

The government has begun shipping relief goods to herding communities that have already lost 78,000 head of livestock and are having trouble feeding another 5 million head, the report said.

The snows began about 50 days earlier than last winter, when a similarly severe winter caused huge livestock losses and left some 80,000 Tibetans in danger of starving and freezing to death.