China-8,000 cattle killed in snow storm-Mongolia 120,000 animals lost.

A total of 8,160 cattle died in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region this month as a result of heavy snowfalls, area authorities say.

Yu Donghua, a prefecture husbandry and veterinary bureau official, told China’s official state-run Xinhua news agency Monday that four recent snowfalls in the Yili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture caused the cattle deaths.

Yu said the heavy snowfalls prompted avalanches and low temperatures in the northwest province that killed the cattle and destroyed area structures.

The bureau official said 435 cattle sheds and 891 homes in the province were destroyed by the recent snowfalls.

"Although the continuous snow has alleviated the drought, it is a disaster for cattle during the calving period," Yu told Xinhua.

The news agency said with additional heavy snowfall forecast for the Yili prefecture during the next three days, prefecture officials have relocated 38,814 cattle and 1,420 households to safer areas

MONGOLIA.

As of January, about 120, 000 animals have been reported lost by herders nationwide. This included 67, 300 goats, 41,400 sheep, 77,000 cattle, 39,000 horses and 100 camels.

This figure increased 70,700 animals compared with the same period of the last year. Losses by aimag shows Zavkhan accounts for 80.8 percent of Mongolia’s animal losses. This was nearly 20 percent of the country’s animal losses, followed by Bayan-Olgii (18.6%), Uvs (16.5%), Khovd (12.0%), Bayankhongor (7.3%) and Gobi-Altai (6.8%) aimags.

Officials say Khovsgol aimag has the largest number of livestock in the country with 3.7 million. It is followed by Ovorkhangai with 3.3 million, Arkhangai with 3.3 million, Zavkhan with 3.1 million and Tov with 2.9 million animals.