Society

14 trapped in Altay village rescued, 7 still missing

By Cui Jia (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-22 07:13

Fourteen of the 21 people trapped for a month in a remote mountainous village of Altay, a city of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, in the wake of continuous snowstorms were rescued yesterday.

A search is on for the other seven.

The 21 people, believed to be illegal gold diggers, were trapped in the village, some 120 km from Altay, after a major snowstorm hit the region.

Nine members of the group attempted to retreat to another village following a blizzard on Jan 12, as they were running out of food, but only two managed to reach the destination with severe frostbite after struggling for six days under extreme weather conditions. The other seven got lost on the way.

"Altay police was informed of the situation at about 5:30 pm on Wednesday," Yuan Bing, the director of external affairs of Altay's information office told China Daily yesterday.

"Considering those people had been trapped for almost a month and had gone without food for three days, we informed the regional emergency rescue office straight away, so that rescue work could be carried out as soon as possible," he added.

The emergency rescue office sent two helicopters, as it was "impossible to reach the area", where roads were covered with 2 m of snow, Yuan said.

The 14 people were rescued from the village, which is covered under a thick blanket of snow, and flown back to the city by the People's Liberation Army in two groups yesterday afternoon.

All 14 people were later sent to a hospital for medical checkups, and only one suffered from severe frostbite, while the rest were discharged.

Xinjiang has been experiencing the worst snowstorms in 60 years. Altay is the worst-hit area.

The temperature in Koktokay county - the "north pole of China", in Altay - dropped to -43.8 C, the lowest on record, on Wednesday.

The temperature in Urumqi, capital of the region, is expected to plummet to -25 C today, the lowest this winter.

In Xinjiang, 1.26 million people have been affected by the harsh winter, with more than 150,000 people evacuated, according to the latest figures.

The direct economic loss due to the cold is estimated at 450 million yuan ($66 million). More than 80 million yuan has been put into relief work. The central government allocated an extra 50 million yuan as emergency relief funds on Tuesday.