(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-29 09:29

BEIJING - Chinese authorities have spared no effort in combating snow-inflicted woes and reducing the negative impact to the least extent as volatile weather continued to rage in a dozen Chinese regions on Monday.

Repairmen work to restore power supply after it was cut by a rare snowstorm in Xuancheng, East China's Anhui Province, January 28, 2008. Wild winter weather across China crippled energy and transport, and caused roughly 3 billion US dollars of economic loss. [Xinhua]

The Chinese Ministry of Railways mobilized 35 extra trains on Sunday night to help disperse about 500,000 passengers who were stranded in Guangzhou, capital of the southern Guangdong Province, because of snow, the Guangzhou Railways Company Group said.

Millions of travelers are currently struggling to make their annual trip home as the Spring Festival, the most important Chinese holiday, is only nine days away.

Related readings:  Power supply tops agenda  US$13.5mln allocated to aid snow-hit areas  Snow forecast to keep falling  Snow casts doubts on holiday plans  Heavy snow kills 24 in China, causes US$3b loss  Armed police officers fearless of snow, wind  Chinese make 53m bus trips on 1st day of Spring Festival travel  Heavy snow chokes transport before Spring Festival

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 the central Hunan Province 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.

Prior to Sunday night the Ministry of Railways had already dispatched 25 trains to Guangzhou to transport passengers by circumventing the Beijing-Guangzhou railway.

Guangzhou has set up simple facilities in a few venues such as big stadiums and conference and exhibition centers, to provide temporary shelter for stranded passengers.

"About 60,000 passengers have been relocated to these venues, and it is estimated 200,000 people will need to be accommodated when more passengers arrive in Guangzhou to take trains back home, " said Yu Desheng, a local transportation official.

Meanwhile, free bus services were provided to take migrant workers back to their work sites if they choose not to travel home for the holiday.

Guangzhou stopped selling railway tickets and announced that tickets previously purchased could be returned without a service charge. However, most passengers have been reluctant to return their tickets, hoping that railway operations would resume soon.

Traffic on the Beijing-Guangzhou line likely won't be normalized within the next three to five days as snow is persisting in central China, Guangdong railway authorities said.

China's eastern business hub Shanghai also halted rail ticket sales on Monday, after 58 trains serving the municipality were delayed during a 12-hour period, stranding about 30,000 passengers.

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