The Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway was re-opened, but parts of South
China were shrouded in heavy fog yesterday morning adding to
traffic woes caused by snow and sleet for the past three weeks.
State leaders, however, expressed confidence of winning the
fight against all odds and restoring normality and order during
Spring Festival.
President Hu Jintao said transport, power supply and people's
livelihood are the top priorities of the ongoing relief work. His
remarks came at a meeting with non-CPC personalities.
People's Liberation Army soldiers carry steel
frames to install poles and restore power supply in snow-hit
Fuzhou, Jiangxi province, yesterday. The disaster has left 1.8
million people there without electricity for 10 days. Xinhua
Electricity supply is being restored and transport services are
basically back to normal, Premier Wen Jiabao said.
With the snowfall weakening, rail transport is also returning to
normal, the Ministry of Railways said.
The country is confident and capable of overcoming the disaster,
Wen said at a seminar, attended by more than 20 foreign nationals
engaged in the revolution and building of new China.
There was good news for the southern parts of the country for
the Lunar New Year. China Meteorological Administration spokeswoman
Jiao Meiyan said yesterday that most areas in the middle and lower
reaches of the Yangtze River would have clear days from Feb 6 to 9,
with the mercury rising gradually.
But after Feb 10, she said, a new round of snow and rainfall is
likely to hit southern China again.
The fight against nature's fury is far from over. A thick fog
reduced visibility to less than 100 m in parts of Chongqing
municipality and Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hubei, Jiangxi, Hunan
and Guizhou provinces, forcing postponement or cancellation of 50
flights in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu.
But as visibility improved in the afternoon, airports in
Nanjing, Hangzhou in Zhejiang and Yichang in Hubei resumed
operations, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China
(CAAC) said.
The fog forced temporary closure of some expressways in
Zhejiang, Hunan, Anhui, Jiangxi and Jiangsu and caused some traffic
accidents, too.
In Hubei, a person was killed in an eight-vehicle pile-up on the
freeway between Wuhan and Huangshi.
In Hunan, the fog slowed down traffic on the just reopened
Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway, the country's arterial north-south road.
The freeway re-opened fully after 1,200 soldiers and armed
policemen worked for days to clear the ice and snow.
"Vehicles are running on the expressway now, though slowly, at
30 to 40 kph," Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Gang said in
Hunan.
But even that was enough for the last of the 6,000 vehicles
stranded on the freeway to move toward their destinations. Most of
the drivers had been stranded on the road for up to a week.
Minister of Communications Li Shenglin said the north- south
arterial road is vital for the health of the country's economy. Its
closure had disrupted passenger transport, and food and fuel supply
just before the country's peak holiday season.
The expressway had to be closed and re-opened many a time over
the past week because of the heavy snowfall. Thick layers of snow
deposited on long stretches of the expressway at night solidifying
into ice by daybreak, making clearing work very difficult in the
daytime.
A total of 239 trains ran on the vital Beijing-Guangzhou line on
Sunday with no detours being reported. Altogether, 192 trains
reached and 191 departed from Guangzhou, carrying 452,000
passengers.
The cold, icy weather has hit 19 provinces, municipalities and
autonomous regions, destroyed 223,000 homes and damaged another
862,000. It had killed more than 60 people till Friday including 11
electricians who died in the course of duty.
(China Daily February 5, 2008)
