All except one of the 260 herdsmen stranded by the worst snowfall in decades in northwest China's Gansu Province had been rescued as of Wednesday, local authorities said.

Two helicopters and 20 soldiers were sent into the area on Tuesday, and relief supplies including 138 cases of instant noodles, 60 quilts and one ton of feed for stranded animals were airlifted in.

The cold spell from March 3 to 7 has affected more than 50,000 people and stranded nearly 100,000 sheep, leaving one-tenth of the animals dead, according to the latest statistics from Yumen People's Government of Gansu.

It is the worst snowfall in five decades to hit Yumen, in the west part of Gansu, with snow reaching a depth of 1.5 meters, the local meteorological bureau said Wednesday.

Han Hu, an official of the Yumen city government, told local media that the disaster affected more than 6,300 hectares of farmland, froze 2,100 hectares of crops and destroyed more than 500 buildings, causing direct economic losses of nearly 30 million yuan (US$4.4 million).

After the snowstorm, the Yumen disaster relief office sent nine rescue groups to snow-hit areas with more than 1,550 rescue workers taking part in the rescue on Monday, the Yumen government said on its website.

Local traffic was cut off by the snow, and by Tuesday all roads to the outside from Yumen had been reopened after 150 rescue workers cleaned the snow and ice with the aid of 26 tractors and six forklift trucks.

More relief supplies are on their way to the disaster-hit areas and the city government has allocated 1.5 million yuan and 260 tons of relief materials to affected residents, the local bureau of civil affairs said.

The Jiuquan prefecture government has also allocated 30 tons of feed and 600,000 yuan for disaster relief

Every household will be given 500 yuan as a relief fee.

The Gansu meteorological bureau has predicted that more precipitation is likely to hit most parts of the province from March 13 to 15, which might cause further economic losses, Han said.

Since March, snow has hit parts of north China, including Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Gansu, causing casualties and economic losses.

Avalanches in Xinjiang have affected nearly 2 million people and claimed 30 lives with direct economic losses reaching 2.7 billion yuan, according to the local civil affairs bureau.

(China Daily March 11, 2010)