BEIJING: Unusually early snow storms in north-central China have claimed 40 lives, caused thousands of buildings to collapse and destroyed almost 200,000 hectares of winter crops, the Civil Affairs Ministry said on Friday. Nineteen of the deaths resulted from traffic accidents related to the storms that began on November 9, the ministry said in a statement on its Web site. The snowfall is the heaviest in the northern and central provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong and Henan since record keeping began after the establishment of the Communist state in 1949. It estimated economic losses from the storm at $ 659 million).