Snow Paralyzes Northeast Asia

January 9, 2001 / 8:00 AM EST / AP

Snowstorms rippling across Northeast Asia have killed at least 32 people and stranded thousands, with rescuers struggling to cut through snowbound roads.

Blizzards paralyzed South Korea with up to 39 inches of snow, while convoys of relief trucks fought to reach remote homes in China isolated since Jan. 1 by head-high snowdrifts. In Japan, eight inches of new snow stopped road and rail traffic.

The storms were created when a mass of bitterly cold air from Siberia collided with a moist current sweeping up from the south, China's State Meteorological Administration said.

In China, the snow has sealed off homes scattered across the grasslands of vast, sparsely populated Inner Mongolia.

Convoys carrying heating oil, food and animal feed have found some roads impassable, and on others the snow has slowed their progress to a mere 60 miles a day, the government-run Beijing Youth Daily said.

Authorities were still trying to determine how many people were cut off, said You Xiaoping, a local disaster relief official. News reports said at least 180,000 people were affected, most unable to work or tend their herds in the area about 185 miles north of Beijing.

While one official previously put the death toll at 20, You said Tuesday that 13 people were confirmed dead and another 14 were missing.

Temperatures plunged to 40 degrees below zero during the storm, killing at least 16,000 ranch animals, the lifeblood of Inner Mongolia's rural economy, the newspaper said.

In South Korea, the snow caused more than $150 million in property damage, including houses and thousands of barns and fish farms, the government said. More than a million stock animals, mostly chickens, were killed.

The storms that began Sunday paused on Monday, but on Tuesday they dumped another 4 inches of snow. Weather forecasters called it the worst snowstorm to hit South Korea in 20 years.

At South Korea's Kimpo Airport

Airlines canceled about a third of their Tuesday flights, stranding thousands of tourists. The nation's two airlines — Korean and Asiana — said they lost $12 million in sales over two days.

About 74,000 soldiers and cleaning workers were deployed to clear snow from the nation's major highways and roads.

On a highway in the northeastern region, rescue workers brought food to hundreds of motorists who slept in their cars Monday night.

The storm whipped up high ocean waves. Three fishermen drowned after two boats capsized in high waves near Cheju island, and a fourth was swept away and presumed dead, the Central Disaster Headquarter said.

In Japan, the snow disrupted transportation. At least one person died — a 38-year-old Vietnamese citizen killed in a three-car collision in Kanagawa province near Tokyo, police said.