BEIJING, June 2: At least 52 people have been killed in Mongolia by a severe snowstorm that has also frozen to death more than 200,000 livestock, Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.

Fourteen children were among those killed by the storm, which has raked various parts of the country with strong winds and heavy snow, it said in a report from the landlocked nation’s capital of Ulan Bator.

As well as the 200,000 livestock dead, another 200,000 were missing in the storm, it said, citing the Mongolian General Authority for Emergency Management.

It did not specify what sorts of livestock were included in those totals but much of Mongolia’s population of roughly three million people rely on subsistence herding of cattle, goats and sheep.

The snowstorm has also caused some damage to power supplies and communication systems in affected areas.—AFP