About 30,000 herdsmen stranded by heavy snowfall in Altay, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, have been moved to safety with the help of relief units, local officials said yesterday.

The week-long snowfall, which started on December 29, also left 61,230 heads of livestock trapped on winter pastures in Altay.

Herdsmen have now managed to lead most of them safely back to residential areas, local Xinjiang Daily reported.

"Only some weak sheep died half way," Hanbar, a herdsman who has just returned from a snowbound pasture in one of the hardest hit areas of Fuyun County, told local reporters.

He said his loss was much heavier five years ago when a blizzard killed dozens of his sheep and caused him serious frostbite. This time, local relief units helped him and saved many of his sheep.

"When I was stranded on snows of up to 50 centimeters, rescuers provided me with food and forage for my 600 heads of livestock," a local paper quoted.

A blizzard from Siberia and temperatures as low as -43 C have forced the evacuation of almost 100,000 people and stranded a further 220,000 in Xinjiang, the National Disaster Reduction Centre said on Friday. The Altay Prefecture was the hardest hit area.

Local civil affairs authorities have dispatched 18 relief units to disaster-stricken areas in Altay and earmarked 3.8 million yuan (US$ 470,000) to ensure local residents a warm winter, the report said.

In the hardest hit counties of Fuyun and Qinghe, a total of 950 tons of stored forage have been given to disaster-affected people. Other relief materials, including fuel, medicine and food supplies, have also been distributed, according to the report.

The regional Red Cross Society has offered Altay relief materials worth 100,000 yuan (US$12,300), including cotton and feather quilts. And more help is under way from the national Red Cross.

(China Daily January 9, 2006)