Special Report: China's war on snow havoc

    CHANGSHA, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Heavy fog that shrouded several central Chinese provinces on Sunday morning had started to disperse around midday, but traffic logjams persisted.

    In Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, one of the areas hardest hit by three weeks of severe weather, dozens of flights that were delayed in the morning started to take off at midday, said officials at the Huanghua International Airport.

    The fog, which reduced visibility to 50 meters on Sunday morning, had virtually closed the airport, with no take-offs or landings before 10:00 a.m.

    Other foggy provinces, including Anhui and Jiangxi in the central eastern region and Guizhou in the southwest, were also clearing up on Sunday afternoon. But the fog still added to the misery of China's pre-holiday traffic chaos.

    An icy section of the pivotal expressway linking Beijing and Zhuhai was jammed with more than 10,000 vehicles on Saturday night. Road authorities in Chenzhou City said that vehicles were backed up for 70 km, even though workers were removing ice from the roads on Sunday.

    One official of the Chenzhou Communications Bureau died on Saturday, reportedly due to stress from having worked several days without relief. Lu Mingqiang, 43, had been removing ice and snow from State Highway 107 on Friday afternoon and spent the whole night in his office, answering the phone, receiving instructions from the city government and hearing angry drivers' complaints.

    He collapsed into his chair at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday and never woke up.

    CHENZHOU IN THE DARK

    As rail service in the southern Guangzhou Province began to return to normal on Sunday, with 100 trains scheduled to carry 300,000 passengers to destinations nationwide, central parts of the country remained under pressure.

    The pressure was particularly high in Chenzhou, which has gone without electricity for nine days and water for eight days, despite strenuous efforts to ease the crisis. The city government and municipal committee of the Chinese Communist Party made a public apology to residents on Saturday for having caused the inconvenience.

    "We greatly regret for the inconvenience caused and we'll be with you to withstand the trial," read an open letter that was aired on the local radio station on Saturday night.

    The city of 4 million in the southern part of Hunan Province, where snow is rarely seen, was apparently unprepared for the severe weather.

    With the power grid in tatters, the only lights that were seen at night were the headlights of vehicles and a few hotels that had their own generators. Flashlights and candles have become sought-after items at local stores.

    The blackout has thrown residents back to the old days: no TV and cell phones with batteries too low to use and no electricity to recharge them. The only remaining connection to the outside world became the radio.

    The weather crisis has led to more bone fractures and cardiovascular and respiratory ailments in Chenzhou, said sources with the city's No. 1 People's Hospital, the only medical institution that is still powered by dynamos.

    "At least 400 patients are hospitalized daily," said Chen Yaguang, president of the hospital. On Saturday alone, it treated 1,336 people. Altogether, 183 babies were born in the last 10 days.

    LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND

    A woman on the outskirts of Chenzhou has moved hundreds of drivers by serving lunchboxes, hot water and even offering a rest in her house.

    Seeing the stranded queues of vehicles and drivers shivering in the cold, Chen Jiuyue, a 40-something villager in Beihu District next to the most congested section of the Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway, has been bringing them food and boiling water since Jan. 25.

    "At the beginning, some drivers feared I'd overcharge them," she said.

    Chen told them a lunchbox sold for 2 yuan and hot water was free.

    She also took some drivers home, offered them hot ginger soup -- a Chinese recipe to fend off cold -- and seated them by the fire.

    When Chen was busy cooking, she got her two sisters to help with the household chores, including looking after her husband, who's been confined to bed for four years with uremia.