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

Trains from Shanghai to the southwestern Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces were cancelled. The Shanghai railway bureau earmarked 4 million yuan (551,700 U.S. dollars) for passengers who were returning tickets.

The disruptions also affected Beijing and Wuhan. In Wuhan, a city in the central section of the artery, more than 10 trains made re-routed trips via the rail line linking Beijing and Shenzhen, a city bordering Hong Kong, to reach Guangdong.

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Airports in at least 10 cities, such as Wuhan, Nanjing, Guiyang and Changzhou, were closed temporarily on Monday.

At Shanghai Pudong International Airport, 96 international flights were canceled or delayed on Sunday and Monday. The authorities reminded passengers to check flight information before heading to the airport.

Huanghua Airport in Changsha, Hunan's capital, has been closed for four consecutive days and more than 10,000 stranded passengers have been temporarily accommodated in nearby hotels.

According to Chen Huiyi, a member of the airport staff, about 100 passengers have insisted on staying at the airport itself and they have been given water and bedding.

Ice-clearing vehicles sent from eastern Shandong Province were being used to clear the airport. "We will try our best to get passengers to their destinations as soon as possible," Chen said.

About 11,000 vehicles were piled up on the highways in eastern Anhui Province, where half of the state and provincial highways were crippled by the snow. More than 8,000 traffic police were dispatched to keep order on the 40-kilometer congested section.

MAINTAINING SOCIAL ORDER

The snow, the heaviest in a decade in many places, has been falling in east, central and south China since January 12, causing deaths, structural collapses, power blackouts, highway closures and crop destruction.

Hunan Province and the western Guizhou Province have been the worst hit by the unprecedented spell of severe weather.

The Public Security Bureau of Hunan has sent daily text warnings to the province's more than 1 million drivers and information on road conditions was being broadcast around the clock.

In Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu Province, the accumulated snow reached a record 36 centimeters. About 250,000 people went out to clear the snow on Monday, answering a government call made on Sunday.

In the industrial city of Wuhan, in central China, 56 energy-intensive enterprises were required to cut power consumption. It is expected that 240,000 kw of electricity would be saved in that way to meet the power demand of 120,000 households. Further power control measures could be imposed if necessary.

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