Death toll from snow in N. China rises to 40 -- Shanghai Daily

UNUSUALLY early snowstorms in north China have claimed at least 40 lives in weather-related accidents and caused billions of yuan in damage, the Civil Affairs Ministry said yesterday.

Nineteen of the deaths resulted from traffic accidents related to the storms that began on Monday, the ministry said in a news release posted on its Website.

The snowfall is the heaviest in the area since record-keeping began following the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, the ministry said. It estimated economic losses from the storm at 4.5 billion yuan (US$659 million).

The storms have caused the collapse of more than 9,000 buildings, damaged 190,000 hectares of crops and forced the evacuation of 158,000 people, the ministry said.