The Chinese town of Mohe and the Russian towns of Yakutsk, Oymyakon and Verjoyansk, with temperatures below 50 degrees below zero, are three of the coldest inhabited areas on the planet and bid to attract extreme travelers
The Siberian cold that leaves half of Spain shivering has taken on all its authentic reality in Mohe, a Chinese city on the border with Russia that has possibly beaten the lowest temperature recorded by the Asian giant since it was measured by its meteorological services: 53 degrees Celsius below zero . It is known as the ‘North Pole of China’, it is located in the province of Heilongjiang, it is the northernmost city in the country and 80,000 people live there who must face complications as unprecedented for the rest of the world as the engines break if they remain standing outside for more than half an hour or that tears freeze if people do not walk down the street sufficiently protected.
Mohe is not the only inhabited place where life takes place in a freezer. A thousand kilometers from there is Yakutsk, only 450 kilometers from the Arctic Circle. Census no less than 300,000 inhabitants; an unprecedented volume in an extreme territory that remains from the end of summer until well into spring at an average of 40 degrees below zero. While Mohe scored -53º on Monday, in this town it fell to 62.7 degrees Celsius below zero. Is it possible to live in those circumstances?
The reality indicates so. Scientists are an important part of this community. The region constitutes in itself an object of study, which makes it possible to verify the environmental and geological effects of the most radical temperature fluctuations. In summer the thermometer rises to 20 degrees Celsius. The houses are supported on stilts and a kind of buttresses are distributed around the place to prevent the rapid thaw from flooding all the streets. Of course, the quagmire is inevitable. In addition to scientists, another large percentage of residents are miners who work in the extraction of diamonds, the great business of the region, and students. In such a remote and extreme corner burns the flame of knowledge. The North-Eastern Federal University, founded in 1934 and one of the largest in Russia, enrolls some 20,000 students in nine faculties (from Geology and Engineering to Law) and a dozen higher institutes.
Residents of the Heilongjiang region spend eight months in the snow. /
Yakutsk is an adverse city for many, but worse is Oymyakon, another Siberian population submerged in the depth of the ice. With a thousand inhabitants, the town occupies a depression between two mountains. This favors the intensification of the cold due to its own concentration and the almost total absence of sunlight. There are no western type thermometers. They explode. Neighbors should monitor the time they get out of bed to light the fireplace, as (wooden) houses literally freeze in just over eight hours. You don’t see hardly any cars either. “Everything that is not covered is in danger of freezing”, warns the Tourist Office, which asks visitors to comply with a series of security measures because, otherwise, “they could die of cold in a short time”. In 1933 Oymyakon marked 67.8 degrees below zero, although a good part of his neighborhood claims the dubious -71.2º that a geologist dated in 1926 based on different calculations.
A few hundred kilometers away is Verkhoyansk. The title of coldest polar city is disputed with Oymyakon. For a single degree. This is how rough a rivalry is motivated not only by its possibility of attracting tourism, but by a kind of historical honor and also by receiving official aid. The population is older, lives from mining and raising cattle. The basic fuel is wood and coal because gasoline freezes. Even so, the distribution of diesel is guaranteed to feed the electric generators. Mobile phones and the Internet are essential to communicate with the rest of the country. When the cold arrives, the earth freezes and it is possible to travel by car on the so-called winter route. In summer the only connection with these remote towns is by plane because the region becomes a quagmire. Any food out in the open freezes in half a minute.
Image of one of the winter festivals that attract thousands of tourists to the coldest part of China. /
The two Siberian towns are bidding to be designated as the coldest in the world. They see tourism as a sector to be exploited, although they still lack the necessary infrastructure. Even so, dozens of travelers venture there each year, attracted by stepping on the inhabited ends of the planet. The authorities look with envy at neighboring Yakutsk and China’s Mohe, which have managed to establish themselves as a winter destination for fans of extreme weather and winter sports. In the case of Mohe, these arctic temperatures are not at all strange, since the location and its polar climate mean that it snows for eight months of the year. Winter begins in mid-October and ends at the end of April and it has become a tourist attraction thanks to its ice and snow parks. For several years it has hosted ski marathons. The highest number of visitors was in 2011, when 10,000 tourists arrived for the festival of polar lights. The ice, the white mountains and the northern lights are the spectacles that have boosted the city’s economy.
The local authorities have reinforced these days the controls and security to guarantee the supply of heating and water during the Chinese New Year festivities. In addition, trucks with hot water and electric generators are on call 24 hours a day. After the historical minimum of last Monday, the weather has settled in Mohe, if it is understood as such that temperatures are close to 40 degrees Celsius below zero and the maximum does not exceed 15 degrees below zero.
siberian air
The irruption of wind of Siberian origin that has transformed these cities into an even colder reality in recent days also affects other eastern regions that present extreme cold and, in some, the consequences have been fatal. Already in November 2022, there was an alert about the mass of cold air accumulated throughout the year in the Russian territory known as the ‘Beast from the East’.
At least 150 people have died from the freezing temperatures in Afghanistan in the past two weeks. With 20 degrees Celsius below zero, the virulent winter wave and flash floods have wreaked havoc in the villages and frozen dozens of Afghans who, due to the very serious crisis in the country, are living out in the open in tents. Adverse weather conditions have also reached South Korea and Japan.
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