ULAN BATOR, May 3 (Xinhua) -- More than 5.6 million livestock carcasses have so far been destroyed across Mongolia, the country's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said Friday.
This means that about 80 percent of the carcasses of all the livestock animals that perished last winter and this spring due to severe wintry conditions, commonly known as "dzud," have been destroyed, the NEMA said in a statement.
"Dzud" is a Mongolian term describing a severely cold winter when a large number of livestock die because the ground is frozen or covered in snow.
Almost all provinces of the Asian country experienced harsh weather conditions over the past winter, and over 80 percent of the country had been blanketed by snow, prompting the government to elevate its disaster preparedness to high alert.
The promotion of livestock husbandry is seen as the most viable way to diversify the landlocked country's mining-dependent economy.
As one of the last surviving nomadic countries in the world, the country had 64.7 million heads of livestock at the end of 2023, according to the National Statistics Office. ■