Prolonged snow, rain and cold weather has led to a number of
train delays in central and southern areas of China, in addition to
expressway closures and flight cancellations, stranding tens of
thousands of people on their way home for the upcoming Spring
Festival holiday.
As of 4:00 a.m. Saturday 136 electric passenger trains were
delayed on an artery railway in central China's Hunan Province as
local power supply system had been damaged by continuous snowfall
and icy rain.
Technicians and workers with the Guangzhou Railway Group Corp.,
which the trains belong to, were using more than 100 diesel
locomotives to pull the electric locomotives and carry tens of
thousands of passengers out of the section that suffered brownout
in the overhead power lines, a company spokesman said on
Saturday.
The company had dispatched more than 10,000 technical workers to
repair the damaged power lines, he said.
The snow-ravaged trunk railway links Beijing and southern
Chinese metropolitan of Guangzhou.
"We will do our best to resume the traffic as soon as possible,
" the spokesman said.
About 40,000 passengers were stranded at different stations
along the Beijing-Guangzhou railway line, he said.
"It seems that I will spend my new year holiday at this
station," a passenger from Chenzhou of Hunan Province told Xinhua
on Saturday in a helpless voice, who has been delayed for several
hours at the Changsha Railway Station along with 2,000
passengers.
"The coach service was suspended because the expressway had been
shut down. I thought it would be easier for me to go home by
railway, but I never thought the train could be delayed by snow,"
he said.
Train delays, up to at least nine hours in some railway
stations, were also reported in Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan
Province and Shenzhen in southern Guangdong Province.
Heavy snowfalls, which have been hitting China's southern,
central and eastern areas since mid-January, have also forced the
evacuation of residents, pulled down houses and damaged crops.
Across the country, millions of people are trying to return home
for the Spring Festival, the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year
that falls on Feb. 7 this year, putting heavy pressure on the
transportation system.
(Xinhua News Agency January 26, 2008)