Hundreds missing after snowstorms in northwest China

Some 217 families of Tibetan herdsmen have been reported missing in the southern part of northwest China's Qinghai Province after five months of heavy snowfalls in the area, Xinhua news agency reported.

The agency on Saturday described the snowstorms in Yushu and Guoluo - two Tibetan Nationality autonomous prefectures in Qinghai - as "natural disasters" .

Villagers in the neighbouring Tibet Autonomous Region have also encountered "the same kind of calamities in the same period" .

"Over 1,000 armed police soldiers have been dispatched to the two prefectures, who have transported over 700 tons of relief materials, rescued 274 local herdsmen, cleaned over 50 km of snow-covered roads, removed over 20,000 animals to safe places, donated 6,500 kg of food and 14,000 yuan worth of goods and medicines," the news agency stated.

It said the snowstorms have brought huge losses to local herdsmen.

So far, 117,200 animals have been killed and more than 7,300 local herdsmen have been injured due to the snow and low temperatures.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.