BEIJING: Nearly 1,000 tourists are stranded in a remote holiday village after an avalanche hit China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, with meter-high snowfall and unstable weather hampering evacuations, state TV said. Told on Tuesday.
Road access to Hemu village, a scenic spot near the borders of Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia, where tourists were stranded, has been cut off by avalanches for several days. It said that the village is located in Altai Prefecture of Xinjiang where some areas have experienced continuous snowfall for 10 days.
Chinese state media outlets reported over the weekend that heavy snowfall caused dozens of avalanches across large sections of highways leading to the Kanas Scenic Area in the Altay Mountains, and some tourists were evacuated by helicopter.
According to CCTV, the snow caused by the avalanche was up to seven meters high in some parts and in many places was higher than snow removal equipment.
Work to clear 50 km (31 mi) of buried road had begun a week earlier.
Rescue and snow removal work resulted in rocks, debris and tree branches mixed with snow, which broke off due to avalanches and were swept down the pine and birch forest slopes into the river valley, rendering rotary snowplow vehicles useless. Rescue workers have resorted to shovels and excavators.
As the weather changes rapidly in the mountainous region, the windows to conduct supply missions have also become narrower. A military helicopter scheduled to send supplies such as flour and fuel to Hemu village was delayed on Tuesday morning, according to CCTV.
Highway management officials in Altai said they have arranged for 53 personnel and 31 sets of machinery and equipment for rescue and relief operations.
“This avalanche situation is relatively special, we have seen such heavy snowfall before, but we have not seen such a high frequency of avalanches,” Zhao Jinsheng, head of the highway management bureau, told CCTV.
Zhao said he expected snow-clearing work to continue for some time to restore access to Hemu village due to the large amount of snow on the last four kilometers (2.5 miles) of the road affected by the avalanche.
