TRAPPED IN A CRUSH: Chinese paramilitary soldiers helping passengers caught in a stampede yesterday as they rushed for their trains in Guangzhou, southern China. A woman was killed last Friday in another stampede. -- PHOTO: AFP

Central Hunan province, the hardest-hit among 19 provinces affected by savage winter weather, was shrouded yesterday in a thick fog that delayed flights and brought road traffic to a standstill, state media reported.

In the provincial capital Changsha, visibility was reduced to 50m yesterday morning. Millions in Hunan have already been without electricity for days.

Four million residents in the city of Chenzhou, for example, have struggled without power and water for eight days. Many say they cannot go on much longer.

However, their plight is set to worsen as meteorologists forecast that blizzards and fog would continue to besiege Hunan well into the Chinese New Year holidays.

The outlook for other central and eastern provinces is equally bleak. China's weather officials said a fresh round of snow is expected to fall today and tomorrow.

Beijing has dispatched more than a million soldiers and police to snow-hit provinces, as well as ordered local mines to step up coal production and shipments.

Despite legions of soldiers and police working frantically with forklifts and armoured vehicles to clear the important Beijing-Zhuhai expressway, south-bound lanes were closed yesterday because ice was up to 10cm thick.

Pressure on the crucial 2,310km link between Beijing and Zhuhai city in southern Guangdong province is reaching critical point as more home-bound travellers abandoned plans to travel by rail and took to the roads.

Vehicles were backed up for 70km along the expressway, state media reported.

Premier Wen Jiabao, who is overseeing relief efforts, has urged courage in the face of the worst winter crisis in 50 years. 'We have the faith, courage and ability to overcome' the disaster, he said on Saturday in a radio address from a train in Hunan province. Other top Chinese leaders have also fanned out to the affected provinces.

With just three days to go before Chinese New Year on Thursday, the situation at the Guangzhou train station, where 240,000 people, mostly migrant workers, are still waiting to get back to their home towns, is becoming increasingly volatile.

A woman was killed during a stampede at the station on Friday.

The blizzards, which began on Jan 10, are now moving into their fourth week over southern, central and eastern China, which are temperate regions unused to such harsh winter weather. However, the weather in the north was clear at the weekend.

The blizzards have affected some 105 million out of the country's 1.3 billion population, killed at least 60 people and caused damage amounting to almost 54 billion yuan (S$11 billion).

But Chinese economists played down any long-lasting impact of the disaster.

A slowdown in exports, investment and industrial production because of the snow may result in slower GDP growth in the first quarter, but any damage inflicted on the economy would be short-

lived, Chinese economists and economic planners told Xinhua yesterday.

Economist Fan Gang, director of China's National Institute of Economic Research, argued that the cold would instead stimulate investment, including upgrading the power grid nationwide and improving the coal infrastructure.

tracyq@sph.com.sg

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