Winter puts obstacles in Wen journey

Chinese Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) rushed to oversee disaster relief yesterday as China buckled under its harshest winter for half a century, which has affected tens of millions of people and paralyzed many areas.

The heavy snowfalls and freezing temperatures across China have left about 50 dead, ravaged power supplies and hit millions of people trying to go home for the Lunar New Year holiday.

A total of 77.9 million 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, state newspapers reported.

Wen to Changsha, capital of Hunan Province which has been particularly badly hit, where he met senior officials.

His journey underlined the extent of the problem -- he flew out of Beijing on Monday but had to land at an airport in neighboring Hubei Province, finally reaching Changsha by train.

"The major task for Hunan is to remove ice," he told state TV 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," he said.

In the latest accident, a bus plunged 40m off a road into a valley in Guizhou Province, the State Administration of Work Safety said. The 35-seat passenger bus was carrying 38 people when it went crashed, killing 25 people, the safety watchdog said. Two passengers were hospitalized in critical condition and the other 11 had slight injuries.

Numerous have suffered blackouts as heavy snowfalls caused power lines to snap and hampered the delivery of coal, used to generate most of China's electricity.

Power that produce 7 percent of China's electricity have shut down for lack of fuel, Xinhua said yesterday, citing the State Electricity Regulatory Commission.

Other accounting for a further 10 percent of the electricity supply have less than three days' reserves, it said.

Trains delivering less than 25 percent of normal daily coal shipments due to bad weather obstructing transportation, Xinhua said.

The Chinese Communist Party Politburo held an emergency meeting yesterday chaired by its secretary-general, President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), and warned of more bad weather.

``In the next few days, there will be more severe weather in some southern areas. The government departments and localities must be aware of the seriousness of the situation and be fully prepared to prevent and fight disasters,'' it said in a notice.

Meanwhile, the number of migrant workers stuck at the main train station in Guangzhou dropped to 200,000, as many simply gave up trying to make the annual trip home and cashed in their tickets, railway officials said.

About had camped out in the station's plaza over the last several days as heavy snowfall in provinces to the north cut off parts of the busy railway line that heads to Beijing. Red banners at the Guangzhou train station encouraged travelers to cash in their tickets and stay in the city.

The train station plaza looked like a massive canopy of umbrellas, as people waited in a bone-chilling cold drizzle for trains or refunds.

Hundreds police officers and railway staff were deployed to control the crowds as angry passengers swamped enquiry desks and harangued rail officials, waving their train tickets and shouting abuse.

"Take him out and beat him," a woman shouted to an agitated mob, glaring at a rail official. "Otherwise they'll never understand how serious this is."