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Snow, travel chaos affect 78m
29/01/2008 14:52 - (SA)
Beijing - Premier Wen Jiabao rushed on Tuesday to oversee disaster relief as China buckled under its harshest winter for half a century, which has affected tens of millions of people and paralysed many areas.
The heavy snowfalls and freezing temperatures across China have left around 50 dead, ravaged power supplies and hit millions of people trying to go home for the main holiday of the year.
A total of 77.9m people have been affected by the weather which has covered a swathe of China stretching from Xinjiang in the northwest to Fujian in the southeast, various state newspapers reported.
Wen travelled to Changsha, capital of central Hunan province which has been particularly badly hit, where he met senior officials, chatted with travellers at the train station and inspected repair work on power lines downed by the weight of ice.
"First of all we need to get the electricity running, then it won't take much time for everyone to be able to go home and pass the Lunar New Year," Wen said over a megaphone as crowds gathered at the train station applauded, state television reported.
His journey underlined the extent of the problem - he flew out of Beijing on Monday but had to land at an airport in the neighbouring province of Hubei, finally reaching Changsha by train.
"The major task for Hunan is to remove ice," Wen earlier told state television from his plane.
"Only with the ice gone can electric power lines and railway networks be safeguarded. Major power plants and the south-north railway should also be the focus of our work."
Bus crash kills 25
Early on Tuesday, a bus skidded off an icy express route in southwest Guizhou province, killing 25 and injuring 13, the government reported.
That toll was on top of at least 24 other fatalities blamed on the weather conditions in the world's most populous nation.
The Communist Party's Politburo, regarded as the centre of power in China, ordered local authorities to make disaster relief the nation's "most pressing task", Xinhua news agency said.
The weather has disrupted travel plans for millions of Chinese striving to return home for the Lunar New Year, which falls in early February.
The situation is particularly severe in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, a province in southern China whose export-oriented industries employ millions of migrant workers - many of whom were hoping to get out before the festival.
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