Sandstorms Hit Mogolia
Storms
How the score is calculated
The score starts at 8. It adds points from recorded affected, deaths, displaced and casualty counts, plus terms found in the story title, event type or status. For each count, only its highest matching band is used.
- Affected people
- 1–999: +5 · 1,000–9,999: +12 · 10,000–99,999: +20 · 100,000–999,999: +28 · 1 million+: +35
- Deaths
- 1–9: +8 · 10–99: +14 · 100–999: +22 · 1,000+: +30
- Displaced people
- 1–9,999: +6 · 10,000–99,999: +12 · 100,000+: +18
- Casualties
- 100 or more: +8
- Story wording
- +10 for terms such as catastrophe, famine, war, conflict, major earthquake, mass casualty or critical. Otherwise, +5 for active, ongoing, emergency, outbreak, cyclone or hurricane.
Score bands: Watch 0–24 · Moderate 25–49 · High 50–74 · Critical 75–100. Scores are capped at 100. Missing or unparseable figures add no points.
This is a rule-based WorldsAid triage indicator, not an official or independently validated classification. It does not account for recency or local context, and it can understate events with incomplete reporting. Check the linked sources.
Historical record
Status: CLOSED · Imported 2026-10-07
Closed for this historical import at the site owner’s request; not a new assessment of current conditions.
In brief
- What happenedViolent gust of wind swept across the country from 14 to 15 March 2021 where the wind speed reached from 18 to 34 meter per second in Uvurkhangai, Bulgan, and Umnugovi provinces, while in Dundgovi province, the wind speed was at 22 to 40 meters per second.
- How many affectedAffected persons: 8,000 · Casualties: 10
- What help is neededResponse priorities should be confirmed in the linked source reports as needs change.
What changed
First retained snapshot
No earlier verified snapshot is present in the recovered dataset. This record remains available as the historical baseline.
Situation
Violent gust of wind swept across the country from 14 to 15 March 2021 where the wind speed reached from 18 to 34 meter per second in Uvurkhangai, Bulgan, and Umnugovi provinces, while in Dundgovi province, the wind speed was at 22 to 40 meters per second. The wind speed also reached 16 to 28 meters per second in Govi-Altai, Bayankhongor, Arkhangai, Tuv, Khentii, Dornod, Sukhbaatar, and Dornogovi. Even though warnings had been disseminated two days prior to the event by the National Agency for Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring, many who were travelling and had been herding their livestock are currently missing. Click here to see the map of affected areas. According to the Mongolian Government Resolution No. 286 of 2015, should the wind speed reach 18 meters per second, it is considered as disaster while if the wind speed exceeds 24 meters per second, it is considered as the catastrophic phenomenon. This event is therefore considered as catastrophic. Due to the wind, 590 people from 46 soums1 of Arkhangai, Bulgan, Bayankhongor, Govi-Altai, Govisumber, Dundgovi, Uvurkhangai, Umnugovi, Zavkhan, Uvs, Tuv, Khuvsgul, and Khovd provinces were reported missing on the night of 14 March and 519 people out of 590 have been found as stated by National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). By 15 March 2021, 1.00 pm local time, 69 people out of the remaining 81 people that were reported missing were found. By the following day, the National Emergency Management Agency reported 10 people out of the last 12 missing people had been found died due to the sandstorm – one in Arkhangai province and one from Dundgovi province. As of 10:00 am on 16 March, efforts are being made to find the remaining two people in Sukhbaatar province. As of 10:00 am on 16 March, estimated damage and loss include 10 casualties (1 minor and 9 adults) and 1.6 million livestock missing. It is still uncertain how much of the 1.6 million missing livestock are dead and alive as of 17 March. As stated in the situation report, there are no household that have lost all of their livestock. However, 69 buildings including office buildings and houses are severely damaged, 587 fences and 92 gers2 are destroyed. Damages are still being assessed by relevant Provincial Emergency Commissions. The Deputy Prime Minister expressed his condolences to the families who lost their members to the wind. The Provincial Emergency Commissions were also tasked to prevent the herders who are going on otor3 to avoid potential violent wind in the future. This event is considered a tragedy as people lose their lives, although prevention measures were disseminated. The sandstorm also caused damaged to major infrastructures such as electricity poles and sub-stations. Due to the event, at 11:20 pm on 13 March, the 216th pillar of the C-458 overhead line, which supplies electricity from Russia to the western regions, collapsed and left Bayan-Ulgii, Uvs, Khovd provinces without electricity. To provide the electricity to the mentioned provinces, temporarily supply connection is established at hydropower plant in Khovd provinces. Efforts are being made to restore the pillar by the Western region power transmission network staff. Also, there was temporary disruption to the 207th overhead line of electricity which supplies eastern provinces including Khentii, Sukhbaatar, Dornogovi, Govisumber and was repaired on night of 15 March.
Linked charities and agencies
WorldsAid verification
A WorldsAid editor reviewed this record against 1 attributed source, cleaned feed formatting and checked the crisis, place and reporting date. 2 human-impact figures were separated from the narrative and dated where the source allowed. Earlier observations remain in the evidence history instead of being silently overwritten.
Verified figures
- Affected persons
- 8,000 retained at 2021-03-23
- Casualties
- 10 retained at 2021-03-23
What we knew when
- WorldsAid record entered the retained historical dataset.
- Last verification represented by this immutable snapshot.
Earlier figures are never replaced by later values; additional observations are retained as new ledger entries.
Provenance
This page renders the last verified WorldsAid cache directly in HTML. It does not treat generated summaries as primary evidence.
Cached dataset: worldsai_drup771.sql.gz
Verified
SHA-256 13299020ea056df1f26df94c515ed5c38a96549bb920d80b0df2aece922dee5d