As of midnight Friday, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China
had deployed 306,000 soldiers to combat the effects of the snow in
the southern parts of the country, a military source said.
About 1.07 million militia and army reservists were
participating in the weather relief effort, the PLA's emergency
response group told Xinhua.
The PLA currently has 2.3 million troops.
Irregular tactics, including shooting power lines with
submachine guns to shatter the ice, and resorting to tanks to crush
ice on the road, were used frequently by soldiers.
Military vehicles such as field kitchen trucks and armored cars
played an important role in de-icing and rescue missions. More than
100 aircraft and helicopters remained on standby, air force sources
said.
Two AN-26 transport planes flew to the southwestern province of
Guizhou in the early hours of Saturday, carrying 5.5 tons of relief
material and equipment including food, medicine and quilts.
By 1:33 p.m. on Saturday, the first of six helicopters loaded
with relief goods, deployed by the Chengdu Military Area in
southwest China, flew to Yibin, Sichuan Province. The copters were
to airdrop 5,500 quilts over snow-hit areas in Dazhou and Yibin's
Changning County, which on top of the snow was hit by a
medium-intensity earthquake early on Friday.
The PLA handed out 419,000 quilts and 219,000 cotton-padded coats
in response to a request from the State Disaster Relief Committee.
In the southern city of Guangzhou, about 1,500 soldiers helped
maintain order at the train station.
Soldiers of the Hubei Provincial Military Area in central China
helped local police to restore a 28-km section of the
Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway, the country's key north-south trunk
road, which had been closed by dangerous icing. Those efforts
helped more than 6,000 vehicles and 12,000 stranded riders continue
their journeys.
The snow, the heaviest in decades in many places, has been
falling in China's eastern, central and southern regions for more
than a fortnight. It has caused deaths, structural collapses,
blackouts, accidents, transport problems and livestock and crop
destruction.
The snow havoc has hit 19 provincial regions and the Xinjiang
Production and Construction Corp, toppled 223,000 houses and
damaged another 862,000, said the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
The ministry said that nearly 7.8 million people had been
affected and 60 people had been killed in the snow-triggered
disaster.
Experts said that the cold, snowy spell had displaced the 1998
Yangtze River flood as the largest natural disaster in decades. The
1998 flood affected 2.3 million people.
"Our troops with skills and modern equipments are playing an
important part in fighting the snow disasters," said Senior Colonel
Tian Yixiang of the emergency response group, adding that the
troops have strengthened their training at dealing with natural
disasters in recent years.
Also joining the effort were more than 100 PLA generals. Air force
General Xu Qiliang and Commissar Deng Changyou called on all
soldiers to carry on the "1998 flood-fighting spirit".
The army mobilized more than 300,000 soldiers to combat heavy
floods that ravaged the Yangtze River area in 1998, which caused
great losses. And in 2003, the PLA mobilized 37,000 members to help
the public cope with the epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome, or SARS.
On Wednesday, President Hu Jintao, who is also chairman of the
Central Military Commission and general secretary of the Communist
Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, ordered troops to go all
out to combat the snow crisis and give whatever assistance the
public needed.
"PLA headquarters and relevant military districts have had tanks
and armored cars on standby and they can be put to use to break ice
on the roads at the request of local governments," said Tian.
"Whenever there is a disaster, the military is obliged to take
part in the relief work," Tian said. "This is an obligation
required by the Constitution and the laws. When manpower is needed,
we send our men. When goods are needed, we offer our goods," he
added.
(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2008)
