The dzud disaster affected all 1,009 families in the Zuil locality. Out of 132,000 livestock they owned only about 40,000 remained, and even they are now too weak to survive the remaining month until the fresh grass comes up. Pastures with all their grass wiped out last summer by a severe drought, now looks as a black blanket. Only sand and small stones can be found in stomachs of dead animals. And the occasionally striking spring storms and snow blizzards are more deadly for the livestock already weakened after long and scarce winter months.
Elders say that the pain went into the heart.
Tserendoo was widowed when she was 27 and left with four small kids and 12 year old younger brother of her husband. All the property she gathered during the years of hard work, as well as her hopes to educate younger sons were taken away by the dzud. In the gher corner about two dozens of lambs and the only calf stretch their heads towards warmth radiating from the stove on top of which a pot with a couple of sheep heads and feet is boiling. All their reserves of dried meat, flour and sugar were all gone long time ago as the family shared it in an attempt to save the newly born animals. Today more than half a million herders are being stricken with the dzud disaster losing more than 2.5 million animals.