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A driver takes a spade to her car on the
snow-covered road in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, on
Jan. 28, 2008. By 8:00 on Monday about 36 centimeters of snowfall hit the
city, breaking a record since 1961.(Xinhua Photo)
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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 Hunan 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.
The number of passengers stranded in Guangzhou
reached 500,000 yesterday, up from 150,000 on Sunday, Guangzhou Railways Company
Group said.
Yesterday nearly 50,000 passengers were still
stranded in the Hunan section of the Beijing-Zhuhai expressway.
Traffic on the Beijing-Guangzhou line will not return
to normal for up to five days, the Ministry of Railways said.
It has already sent 78 diesel locomotives to pull
stranded electric trains and sent more than 70 empty trains to pick up
passengers.
By Sunday evening, 89 passenger trains with 100,000
passengers on board had bypassed the non-operational section, heading toward
their destinations.
In Jiangsu, snowfall was the highest since 1961.
Twelve cities and counties saw more than 30 cm of
snow by yesterday evening, with Nanjing experiencing the most - 45 cm.
Snow has also forced the closure of all expressways
in Anhui. Most long-distance buses from Shanghai, Jiangsu and Anhui have stopped
operations.
Yesterday, 11 airports in central and southern China
were closed, according to the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China
(CAAC) yesterday.
By 6 pm yesterday, most airports restarted
operations, except those in Changsha, Changde and Huaihua, all in Hunan, the
CAAC said.
To help relieve operations, the Ministry of Civil
Affairs has sent working teams to Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou and Anhui provinces and
Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
