What’s new: A strong cold front and snowstorm swept through Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region over the weekend, leaving herdsmen missing and livestock trapped amid heavy snowfalls — an outcome likely exacerbated by pandemic control measures, Caixin has learned.
Local meteorological stations issued a red warning for a cold front on Saturday, the first such alert since 2008 when Xinjiang began providing weather disaster warnings. The city of Fukang in central-north Xinjiang saw the temperature drop 26.5 degrees Celsius in just 24 hours.
Xinjiang also issued a yellow warning for a snowstorm as Shawan city in the north recorded 36 centimeters (14 inches) of snow, the highest one-day depth since the meteorological station was built in 1955.
What’s more: The extreme weather has posed a challenge for herders carrying out the seasonal practice of transferring cattle and sheep to pastures at different altitudes for grazing, which normally happens around October and November during the winter cycle.
One herder in Altay prefecture told Caixin that he had lost contact with his father for around a day during the weekend after the cold front hit and that 280 of their family’s sheep have not yet been found, which could result in a potential loss of around 560,000 yuan ($78,000).
Some herders who spoke to Caixin also said that the pandemic curbs had created additional inconveniences when performing the transfers. One herder living in Yili prefecture said that her family had to rent a piece of land and buy fodder to feed the livestock because they weren’t able to go to their usual site due to the pandemic.
Another said that testing Covid positive coupled with tightening curbs prevented him from doing the transfer this year.
Atlay region officials have sent rescue teams to find those trapped in the weather, according to a post on the region’s procuratorate’s Weibo account.
Contact reporter Kelly Wang (jingzhewang@caixin.com) and editor Bertrand Teo (bertrandteo@caixin.com)
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