GUANGZHOU, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Inclement weather has led authorities in south China's Guangdong Province to advise millions of migrants to stay in the cities where they work during the upcoming Spring Festival because they may not be able to complete their journeys home.

    "Guangdong is your home and let's combat the worst freezing disaster in decades together," said an open letter to migrant workers issued by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Labor and Social Security on Tuesday.

    "Please stay in Guangdong to greet and celebrate the Spring Festival joyously," it said.

    The department has also issued a circular requiring that "authorities should persuade migrant workers to postpone homebound journeys and strive to keep the majority of them in Guangdong during the festival."

    The number of migrant farm workers in Guangdong is estimated at26.2 million, according to the department. About 60 percent to 65 percent of the migrant workers wanted to return home for family reunions during the Spring Festival, the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year that falls on Feb. 7 this year, and 30 percent of them have left Guangzhou.

    As part of the effort, the Guangzhou City Federation of Trade Unions in this provincial capital has lined up 50 free movie shows for migrants who choose to stay. It also invited 3,000 workers to an evening party along the Zhujiang River during the festival.

    "We would try to bring festive warmth to make them feel good although they are not with their families," said federation official Yi Lihua.

    Similar efforts were made in the eastern Zhejiang Province, which is a trade hub and China's "engine of commerce."

    Zhang Susu from neighboring Anhui Province works at the Jinhai Electronic Co., Ltd, where activities including performances, contests and trips have been arranged for the staff.

    "I would celebrate the Spring Festival here," she said. "Gathering with other young people is definitely better than being starved and frozen on the way home."

    By Tuesday noon, nearly 100,000 railway passengers had been stranded in Guangzhou because the southern end of the Beijing-Guangzhou rail line, a north-south trunk railway, has been paralyzed by heavy snow in central Hunan Province, where power transmission facilities have been knocked out.

    Many trains have been delayed and traffic on the Beijing-Guangzhou line is unlikely to return to normal within the next three to five days as snow is persisting in central China.

    Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou was paralyzed with more than 14,000passengers stranded there.

    Railway authorities in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing, Jinan and Kunming have been forced to stop selling tickets and refund those already sold. However, most passengers have been reluctant to return their tickets, hoping railway operations would soon resume.

    China has about 200 million migrant workers who travel between cities where they work and their homes in the countryside to celebrate the Spring Festival, a time when Chinese traditionally return to their homes, putting great pressure on the country's transport network.

    The Ministry of Railways predicted that the railways would carry an unprecedented 178.6 million passengers during the travel peak from Jan. 23 to March 2, up from 156 million last year.

    Heavy snow since mid-January, the worst in 50 years in the southern, central and eastern areas, has forced the closure of airports and expressways, in addition to train delays, stranding tens of thousands of passengers.

    Local authorities in various provinces have been providing water, food and quilts to passengers stuck in railway stations and on highways.

    Due to the closure of the expressway linking Beijing with Zhuhai, Guangdong, about 1,300 vehicles and 3,500 people were stranded along a nearby highway in Guangdong's Ruyuan County.

    A local petroleum provider sent workers to sell fuel to the stranded vehicles along the highway. Military authorities sent 150soldiers and 40 vehicles -- half of which were field cooking vehicles -- to the area to prepare meals for the stranded passengers.

    Heavy snow has also affected the normal lives of people, led to power cuts, collapsed buildings, damaged crops and killed livestock.

    The Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Monday that more than 77.86 million people had been affected in 14 provinces, including Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan.

    The latest snow-related accident was in the southwestern province of Guizhou on Tuesday morning, when 25 people were killed after their bus veered off an icy mountain road.

    Separately, four people were killed and eight others injured after a bus overturned on an icy road in northwestern Gansu Province, local authorities said on Tuesday.

    In the Tai'an Township of Yangzhou city, Jiangsu, a man was killed as heavy snow toppled tents in a market. A woman was slightly injured and taken to a hospital.

    The biggest blizzard since 1954 in the central province of Hubei has disrupted the lives of 19.55 million people, of whom 2.8million face a drinking water shortage.

    In the southwestern Guizhou province, 12.53 million have been affected. As many as 240,000 have been evacuated and 2.48 million face a drinking water shortage.

    Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Hunan, one of the hardest-hit provinces, to oversee the relief work on Tuesday.

    In Changsha railway station, Wen offered early Spring Festival wishes to the stranded passengers.

    "I am deeply apologetic that you are stranded in the railway station and not able to go home earlier," Wen told the passengers by loudspeaker. "We are now doing our best to fix things up and you will all be home for the Spring Festival," he added.

    The Premier also visited relatives of three electricity company workers who died when repairing power lines cut by the weather. "I could find no word to convey my condolences; please accept my bow," he said while bowing to the mourning relatives.

    In Beijing, President Hu Jintao chaired a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Tuesday, studying the damage inflicted by icy rain and snowstorms and making plans for relief work.

    The politburo urged local authorities to regard disaster relief as the "most pressing task" and make "all-out efforts" to ensure normal production and life in areas hit by the unusually bad weather.

    Although airports in the cities of Nanjing and Guiyang and expressways in Anhui and Jiangxi provinces reopened on Tuesday, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) forecast early Tuesday that strong snow and rain would continue to hit the central, eastern and southern regions in the near future.