As many as 10 people were killed when a helicopter carrying foreigners and Mongolians crashed about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) west of the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator on Sunday, government and United Nations officials said.
Five foreigners and five Mongolians were killed in the crash, while others had been injured, a government official told AFP.
An official with the UN Development Program in Ulan Bator told AFP by phone that some of the passengers on the helicopter were UN personnel, although the helicopter did not belong to the United Nations.
She said that to her knowledge eight or nine people had been killed in the crash, which she said happened around noon.
The crash came as Mongolia was experiencing its second brutal winter in a row, with massive snowfalls and temperatures far below average threatening to upset the country's fragile economy.
The vast north Asian country is still reeling from last year's winter, the worst in 40 years, which combined with a summer drought to kill around 2.5 million of the country's 33.1 million livestock.
Aid workers said many herds were already weak when heavy early snows blanketed the entire country and they fear the vital livestock industry, which supports one third of Mongolia's 2.4 million people, could be devastated.
UN officials have warned this year's snows have come much earlier than last year and that as a result the impact could be even worse.
Aid workers have said the country has already experienced 15 heavy snowfalls this winter and that pastures are buried under snow up to 1.5 meters (five feet) deep in some areas.
Temperatures have fallen to an average of minus 40 degrees Celsius over recent days and as low as minus 50 Celsius at night.
A UN delegation arrived in Ulan Bator on Friday to assess the needs of the country's nomads.
The delegation included members of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Program (WFP) along with Red Cross and Red Crescent officials -- ULAN BATOR (AFP)
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