Access Roads In China That Had Disconnected Due To Snow Longsoran And Causing Stranded Tourists To Recover

Photos of the air from the road in Altay Prefecture are slowly recovering. (Source: Xinhua/Hu▁kebutuhansu)

JAKARTA - Access roads connecting Hemu Village, Altay Prefecture, Xinjiang, China, tourist destinations near the border of Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia, slowly began to recover on Tuesday afternoon local time, after being covered by a landslide and causing about 1,000 tourists to be stranded.

"Currently, the Kanas landscape area in Altay Prefecture, which was previously hampered by road closures due to snowfall, can now be accessed by the surrounding area," China's official Xinhua news agency wrote, as quoted January 16.

Snowfall has repeatedly swept through the Kanas scene since January 6, resulting in several snow avalanches blocking roads linking the landscape area to outside areas.

A total of 350 km of roads were affected by the avalanche, according to Zhao Jinsheng, director of Administration of the Altay Prefecture Highway.

Previously, about 1,000 tourists were stranded in Hemu Village, due to road access cut off by snow avalanches. Heavy snowfall triggered dozens of snow avalanches along most highways in the Altay mountains that led to the Kanas sight area.

Several tourists were flown by helicopter to a safe place, according to Chinese state media reports on weekends.

The snow carried by the avalanche hit seven meters high in some parts and in many parts, higher than snowfighting equipment, CCTV said.

The work to clear a 50 km (31 miles)-long buried road began a week ago. The rescue and snow clearing work became more complicated due to rocks, debris, and tree branches mixed in the snow, breaking as snow avalanches flowed down the slopes of pine forests and birchs into river valleys, making spinning snowfall vehicles useless. Rescue teams have used shovels and excavators.

The highway management authority in Altay said it had deployed 53 personnel and 31 sets of machines for rescue and rescue work.

"This avalanche situation is relatively special, we have seen heavy snowfall before, but we have never seen such a high avalanche frequency," Jinsheng told CCTV.

Recovery efforts will continue to be carried out to clear snow from several parts of the road, especially in the last four kilometers where snow piled up.