China getting back on its feet as weather improves
2008-02-06

Category Electricity Migrant Workers Nations China City Beijing States Guizhou Guangxi Jiangxi Hunan Metropolitan Beijing People Wen Jiabao Hu Jintao Event 2008 China Snow Storm

The thunder of firecrackers ushered in the Year of the Rat on Thursday, but millions of Chinese were spending a cold holiday as repair teams battled to restore power knocked out by the worst snow storms in a century.

China's leaders spent the eve of the Lunar New Year holiday in some of the worst-hit parts of south-central China offering consolation to residents and encouragement to relief workers.

Premier Wen Jiabao was in the provinces of Jiangxi and Guizhou on his third tour of disaster areas in nine days. He visited one city that has been without electricity for three weeks.

As well as mobilizing more than a million soldiers and reservists to combat the snow and ice, the state has cranked up its propaganda machine to lift spirits for the most important day in the calendar.

"We lost much in the weather disaster...but we also got many things, such as courage, will and the ability to overcome difficulties. Amid the disaster, relations between officials and the masses strengthened and people became more united," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Wen as saying.

In Chenzhou, a city in the central province of Hunan that has been one of the most badly affected areas, state media said homes were getting power back after being blacked out for 11 days.

But most of the city was pitch dark on Wednesday night. The only light came from the occasional hotel or shop with a diesel generator or from the incessant explosion of fireworks.

About 1,000 electricity pylons and poles have collapsed around Chenzhou under the weight of ice and snow, effectively destroying the local power grid.

GETTING BACK TO NORMAL

State media reported that power had been restored partly or fully to 164 of 169 counties battered by blizzards across vast swathes of central, southern and eastern China -- parts of the country simply not prepared for severe winter weather.

Scores died in snow-related accidents in the run-up to the holiday, but the weather improved in time to enable tens of millions to make it home by road and rail in what is the biggest annual migration on Earth.

On Wednesday alone, as a severe-weather alert was lifted, the rail network carried 2.54 million passengers, the government said. Highways were back to normal and only one airport, in Guizhou, was closed.

But the break in the weather came too late for millions of poor migrant workers who had no choice but to spend the holiday at the factories that have made China the workshop of the world.

The economic planning agency said nearly 2,300 mines were working through the holidays to rebuild coal stocks that were depleted as snow and ice snarled the railways. As of Tuesday, state-owned power stations had 10 days' supply, it said.

President Hu Jintao visited the autonomous region of Guangxi in the south where state television showed him helping soldiers load food and other aid on to a helicopter.

"If we are united as one, working in strength, we can overcome the current difficulties and ensure victory all round," he said.

The sound of firecrackers will reverberate across China for much of the next 10 days. The Beijing Times reported that one farmer was killed near the capital by homemade fireworks.

(Writing by Alan Wheatley)