ULAN BATOR, March 22 (Xinhua) -- More than 5 million head of livestock have perished in Mongolia so far this winter, due to extreme wintry weather known as "dzud," the country's State Emergency Commission (SEC) said Friday.
The dzud is a Mongolian term to describe a severely cold winter when a large number of livestock die because the ground is frozen or covered in snow.
As Mongolia saw much more snow than usual this winter, over 80 percent of its territory had been blanketed with snow up to 100 cm thick, according to the country's weather monitoring agency.
The amount of snow cover in Mongolia has so far decreased to around 60 percent, it said, adding that the country is expected to experience severe spring weather.
At the end of 2023, there were over 190,000 herder households in the country, and the number of their livestock stood at 64.7 million, according to the National Statistics Office. ■