Prolonged freezing weather leads to train delays in China

BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Prolonged snow, rain and cold weather has led to train delays in central and south China and stranded tens of thousands of passengers, in addition to expressway closures, flight cancellations and relocations of people.

A total of 136 electric passenger trains came to a standstill on an artery railway in Hunan Province after the local power supply system was damaged by continuous snow and icy rain.

Technicians and workers with the Guangzhou Railway Group Corp., the operating company, were using more than 100 diesel locomotives to pull the electric locomotives carrying tens of thousands of passengers from a section that suffered a sudden drop in power, a company spokesman said.

About 40,000 passengers were stranded at different stations along the trunk line linking Beijing and Guangzhou in south China, he said. Another 50,000 passengers were delayed at Guangzhou Railway Station.

"We will do our best to resume traffic as soon as possible," he said.

The company had dispatched more than 10,000 technical workers to repair the damaged power lines, and cancelled trains scheduled to depart from Guangzhou Railway Station, especially those bound for Hunan, he said.

It had also ordered the transfer of some trains to other lines and refunds to passengers reduce number of stranded people, he added.

"It seems I will spend my Spring Festival holiday at this station," said a passenger from Chenzhou, Hunan Province, who had been delayed for several hours at Changsha Railway Station with 2,000 other people on Saturday.

"The coach service was suspended because the expressway had been shut down. I thought it would be easier to go home by railway, but I never thought the trains could be delayed by snow," he said.

Delays of up to at least nine hours in some stations were also reported in Kunming, Yunnan Province, and Shenzhen, in Guangdong Province.

Airports in east China's Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi provinces as well as expressways have also been temporarily closed.

Heavy snow since mid-January, the worst in 50 years in China's southern, central and eastern areas, has affected tens of millions of people, forced the relocation of hundreds of thousands, led to power cuts, collapsed buildings, damaged crops and left thousands of head of livestock dead.

Five people died in a snow-related accident in Hunan and another three in southwestern Guizhou Province.

Across the country, millions of people are trying to return home for the Spring Festival, the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year that falls on Feb. 7 this year, putting heavy pressure on the already-stressed transport system.

Meteorological authorities have forecast the latest round of heavy snow would last till Monday.