Chinese authorities have spared no effort in combating
snow-inflicted woes and reducing the negative impact to the least
extent as volatile weather continued to rage in a dozen Chinese
regions on Monday.
Dealing with traffic havoc
The Chinese Ministry of Railways mobilized 35 extra trains on
Sunday night to help disperse about 500,000 passengers who were
stranded in Guangzhou, capital of the southern Guangdong Province,
because of snow, the Guangzhou Railways Company Group said.
Millions of travelers are currently struggling to make their
annual trip home as the Spring Festival, the most important Chinese
holiday, is only nine days away.
Passenger build-up in Guangzhou has been especially heavy
because the southern end of the Beijing-Guangzhou rail line, a
north-south trunk railroad, has been paralyzed because of heavy
snow in the central Hunan Province where power transmission
facilities have been knocked out.
Adding to the woes, seven of the eight highways connecting
Guangdong and Hunan provinces have been cut off.
Prior to Sunday night the Ministry of Railways had already
dispatched 25 trains to Guangzhou to transport passengers by
circumventing the Beijing-Guangzhou railway.
Guangzhou has set up simple facilities in a few venues such as
big stadiums and conference and exhibition centers, to provide
temporary shelter for stranded passengers.
"About 60,000 passengers have been relocated to these venues,
and it is estimated 200,000 people will need to be accommodated
when more passengers arrive in Guangzhou to take trains back home,
" said Yu Desheng, a local transportation official.
Meanwhile, free bus services were provided to take migrant
workers back to their work sites if they choose not to travel home
for the holiday.
Guangzhou stopped selling railway tickets and announced that
tickets previously purchased could be returned without a service
charge. However, most passengers have been reluctant to return
their tickets, hoping that railway operations would resume
soon.
Traffic on the Beijing-Guangzhou line likely won't be normalized
within the next three to five days as snow is persisting in central
China, Guangdong railway authorities said.
China's eastern business hub Shanghai also halted rail ticket
sales on Monday, after 58 trains serving the municipality were
delayed during a 12-hour period, stranding about 30,000
passengers.
Trains from Shanghai to the southwestern Sichuan, Yunnan and
Guizhou provinces were cancelled. The Shanghai railway bureau
earmarked 4 million yuan (551,700 U.S. dollars) for passengers who
were returning tickets.
The disruptions also affected Beijing and Wuhan. In Wuhan, a
city in the central section of the artery, more than 10 trains made
re-routed trips via the rail line linking Beijing and Shenzhen, a
city bordering Hong Kong, to reach Guangdong.
Airports in at least 10 cities, such as Wuhan, Nanjing, Guiyang
and Changzhou, were closed temporarily on Monday.
At Shanghai Pudong International Airport, 96 international
flights were canceled or delayed on Sunday and Monday. The
authorities reminded passengers to check flight information before
heading to the airport.
Huanghua Airport in Changsha, Hunan's capital, has been closed
for four consecutive days and more than 10,000 stranded passengers
have been temporarily accommodated in nearby hotels.
According to Chen Huiyi, a member of the airport staff, about
100 passengers have insisted on staying at the airport itself and
they have been given water and bedding.
Ice-clearing vehicles sent from eastern Shandong Province were
being used to clear the airport. "We will try our best to get
passengers to their destinations as soon as possible," Chen
said.
About 11,000 vehicles were piled up on the highways in eastern
Anhui Province, where half of the state and provincial highways
were crippled by the snow. More than 8,000 traffic police were
dispatched to keep order on the 40-kilometer congested section.
Maintaining social order
The snow, the heaviest in a decade in many places, has been
falling in east, central and south China since Jan. 12, causing
deaths, structural collapses, power blackouts, highway closures and
crop destruction.
Hunan Province and the western Guizhou Province have been the
worst hit by the unprecedented spell of severe weather.
The Public Security Bureau of Hunan has sent daily text warnings
to the province's more than 1 million drivers and information on
road conditions was being broadcast around the clock.
In Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu Province, the accumulated
snow reached a record 36 centimeters. About 250,000 people went out
to clear the snow on Monday, answering a government call made on
Sunday.
In the industrial city of Wuhan, in central China, 56
energy-intensive enterprises were required to cut power
consumption. It is expected that 240,000 kw of electricity would be
saved in that way to meet the power demand of 120,000 households.
Further power control measures could be imposed if necessary.
In Shanghai, extra buses were sent to major traffic hubs to deal
with a surge of passengers as more people left their cars at home.
Anti-skid devices were installed on buses in Nanjing.
In Changsha, Wuhan and other hard-hit cities, vegetable prices
have more than doubled. To help keep prices down, the Wuhan
government has ordered all highways and expressways not to charge
tolls to trucks carrying vegetables to the city.
Eastern Jiangsu Province has seen 1,597 houses collapse due to
the snow and 4,370 others have been damaged.
In the agricultural province of Jiangxi, where 13 people have
died in snow-related accidents, 220,000 were forced to evacuate and
8.18 million were affected in one way or another. About 2,700
houses were toppled and 56,400 hectares of crops were ruined by the
snow.
The local government has allocated 8 million yuan to the 38
hardest-hit counties, cities and districts to ensure that residents
have enough food, clean water, warm clothes, safe housing and
timely medical care ahead of the Spring Festival.
Highest alert for more snow
The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) issued a red alert
early on Monday for severe snowstorms in the central and eastern
parts of the country.
According to the forecast, heavy snow is set to blanket northern
Hunan, eastern Hubei, southeastern Henan and northwestern Zhejiang,
as well as most areas of Anhui and Jiangsu provinces on Monday.
In addition, freezing rain will pound some parts of Guizhou,
Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Anhui and Zhejiang.
The CMA warned local governments and departments to prepare for
the coming bad weather. Transport, railway, electricity and
communication departments were advised to prepare post-snow
clean-ups, while suggesting citizens in these areas should avoid
unnecessary outdoor activities.
(Xinhua News Agency January 29, 2008)