Yanqing counting cost of blizzard

Residents of Yanqing county are still suffering the aftereffects of the weekend's blizzard, which has left 57 villages without power and affected over 7,000 people, a media officer from the county, who would not give his name, confirmed Monday.

Getting aid to the stricken county has been hampered by blocked highways.　

While the occupants of some 700 cars who were trapped on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway have been transferred to Beijing, according to the Legal Mirror, the highway is still blocked in the direction of Beijing to Yanqing. Roads are open in the other direction, and trains are operational after some cancellations.

There has as yet been no accounting of the economic losses to the county, the media officer said.

Gao Yongjie, 40, from Xiangying village in Yanqing said the blizzard spoiled the grape vines in his village.

"More than 121 hectares of grapes have been buried in snow, that's a loss of probably 25,000 kilograms of fruit, worth 5 million yuan ($800,000)," said Gao.

The village water supply was cut off, and trees cut power lines, said Gao.

"But the government sent people to fix them quickly, so our lives were not affected," he said.

Wu Yanhong, 25, who works for Zhangshanying township government, said that although water supplies in the town were cut off on Sunday, they had been restored by Monday.　

"The most difficult thing here is still transport, as the bus service has stopped. The snow is 20 centimeters deep even in the town. I have to visit the villages for work but it's impossible now," said Wu.

Food is also in short supply, said Wu.

"The vegetable shelves were already empty yesterday afternoon in nearby markets," she said.

Nearly 800,000 trees in Yanqing were damaged or felled during the storm, which in turn damaged homes, blocked roads and cut power lines.

Wang Shuqin, deputy director from Yanqing Forestry Bureau, said that up to 8 am Monday, 106,000 trees had fallen, and another 716,000 were damaged.

"No one was injured, but fallen trees crushed 130 houses and 208 cars, while more than 200 fallen trees hit the electricity wires in downtown [Yanqing county town]," said Wang.

The cleanup started Sunday, said Wang.

"We cleared the fallen trees and snow on the streets of the downtown area Sunday, and now we are removing the tree branches from power lines," she said.

It has been more challenging to reach remote areas to clear up the trees, said Wang, as they were suffering from a shortage of equipment.

"We only have three mobile elevators, 14 chain saws and some 60 vehicles. Some trees are in remote areas, so without enough tools we can't handle them sufficiently," said Wang