Head injuries and fractures are the most common

The storms - which raged for two days - ruined crops over an area of 70,000 hectares.

"Hailstones like these, the size of a chicken's egg, bombarded eastern parts of the region for several hours without letting up," Russian television told viewers.

"It really was some blizzard," one woman said.

Dozens injured

As the villagers set about clearing piles of hail and snow from their yards and streets, the authorities are left to pick up the pieces.

One local women told television reporters how the storm hit

Dozens of people, including children, are in hospital with head injuries and fractures.

Hundreds of houses have lost their roofs and the grain harvest has been almost completely wrecked.

"There was every prospect for a great harvest," one farmer said.

Help

The hail tore down vineyards in one district famous for its fine wines.

It will take 25 million roubles to restore houses, schools and hospitals in Budennovsk district alone, which suffered the most from the disaster. In one village, not a single house was left with windows and roof intact.

In one village not a single roof was left intact

The Stavropol governor says the region cannot cope on its own and will be asking the Russian Government for help.

"The territory has only 17,000 slate tiles in its reserves. The people of Budennovsk need 300,000. And that's before you start talking about the glass we need - about 40,000 square metres," he said.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.