Across central, southern and eastern China, millions of travellers have been stranded or delayed by the worst snow storms seen here in half a century which have killed 64 people, cut electric power and created havoc on roads and rails.

On Thursday, Chinese President Hu Jintao descended into a mine in northern Hebei province and urged miners to work overtime to supply areas suffering from electricity blackouts with more coal.

'While giving priority to safety, we have to dig up and supply more coal in order to relieve supply shortages, protect normal economic activity and allow the people a happy Lunar New Year festival,' Mr Hu urged the miners.

'As you all will not be able to have any days off, I wish you early New Year's wishes for good health, smooth work and prosperous families.'

At least 30 million people have been affected by rolling power blackouts, with the weather strangling the distribution of coal, source of three-quarters of China's energy, the government has said.

With trucks unable to deliver basic goods to some areas, the army and air force have been recruited to kickstart relief efforts while the government in Beijing has called for calm, with still more harsh weather forecast.

The government has also taken the rare step of asking millions of migrant workers to forego their annual trip home for next week's Lunar New Year festival - often the only bright spot in a life of hard toil and low pay.

'For the sake of their safety, and relieving the stress on transport, I advise migrant workers to stay in the cities where they work,' Mr Zheng Guoguang, chief of the China Meteorological Administration, told the China Daily.

'In normal weather conditions, it would take at least one week for full restoration of power supplies. Against the current backdrop, it will take far longer for electricity supplies and road and railway traffic to return to normal.'

Although air, rail, and road traffic in some areas has slowly resumed, the transport system is effectively paralysed in others.

In Changsha, capital of hard-hit Hunan province, crowds mobbed airport check-in counters on Thursday.

About 100 passengers blocked access to the security screening area in frustration at the transport snarls, said Mr Frankie Fu, a college student who has waited for a week to return to his home in Guizhou province.

'We have to protest - otherwise we won't get home in time for the festival because weather forecasters say there will be more snow,' he said.

Airport officials said that up to 10,000 passengers in Changsha had been affected by flight cancellations and delays in recent days.

Elsewhere, long stretches of major highways remained impassable, with state television broadcasting images of tens of thousands of cars and cargo trucks in bumper-to-bumper standstills.

In the southern city of Guangzhou, an estimated 800,000 people reportedly remained stranded amid continued chaos on road and rail networks leading north.

Officials were quoted by state media as saying the snarls there, where millions of migrant workers live and work, would persist for at least another three to five days.

In a rare move for a Chinese leader, Premier Wen Jiabao waded into crowds of marooned passengers at Guangzhou's main train station on Wednesday to declare the government was doing all it could.

But Mr Zhang Yongfang, the 32-year-old manager of a Guangzhou computer shop, joined many in criticising the government for failing to anticipate the scale of the mess.

'We have to be able to deal with this properly to demonstrate that we can also deal with big events like the Olympics this year,' said Mr Zhang, who is trying to return home to adjacent Hunan province.

The government has ordered troops to join in relief efforts following mounting reports of water shortages and spiking food prices.

State television showed thousands of soldiers shovelling snow off highways and providing water to stricken residents in hard-hit areas.

Four military transport aircraft began ferrying quilts, coats and other supplies later Thursday to southern China for people whose homes had been destroyed.

Freeze in China kills more than 15 million livestock: Govt
BEIJING - VICIOUS winter weather has killed 15.8 million head of livestock, China said on Thursday, amid fears that rising food prices could exacerbate already historically high inflation.

The toll includes 14 million fowl and 870,000 pigs who froze to death or died due to disruptions in feed and water supplies, the government's official China News Service said.

'The calamity has strained the ability to keep livestock warm and ensure food and water supplies,' Mr Chen Weisheng, vice-director of the Agriculture Ministry's livestock department, was quoted as saying.

China's inflation was already at an 11-year high, due largely to surging food prices, even before a bout of severe winter weather began on January 10.

State media said resulting shortfalls have caused vegetable prices to soar in many areas.

Beijing has made fighting inflation its top economic priority this year and earlier this month implemented strict price controls on key commodities.

China had an estimated 5.4 billion fowl and nearly 500 million live pigs in 2006, according to Ministry of Agriculture figures.

Nearly 150,000 homes had collapsed and another 600,000 had been damaged amid total direct economic losses of 4.5 billion dollars so far, state media said. Reports say more than 100 million people in the nation of 1.3 billion have been affected by the weather. -- AFP