Harsh winter kills over 2 million heads of livestock in Mongolia

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The number of livestock deaths caused by the extreme weather in Mongolia has exceeded 2 million so far this winter, the country's State Emergency Commission (SEC) said Saturday.

"At least 2,009,000 heads of livestock have died due to the dzud across the country," the SEC said in a statement.

"Dzud" is a Mongolian term for a severely cold winter when a large number of livestock die because the ground is frozen or covered by snow.

Over 80 percent of the country has so far been blanketed by snow, according to the country's weather monitoring agency.

Snow scenery in Mongolia. /CFP

As one of the last surviving nomadic countries in the world, Mongolia has recently elevated its disaster preparedness to high alert due to the harsh winter and livestock loss.

The promotion of livestock husbandry is seen as the most viable way to diversify the landlocked country's mining-dependent economy.

At the end of 2023, the number of livestock in Mongolia stood at 64.7 million, according to the National Statistics Office.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency