Snow-stricken China warned that worst is to come
BEIJING, Feb 2 (Reuters) - China is not yet over the worst of a winter weather crisis that has killed 60 and doomed millions to a cold dark Lunar New Year holiday next week.
The State Council, China's cabinet, issued a warning that snow, sleet rain and icy rain will sweep most parts of southern China for several more days, the official Xinhua news agency reported late on Friday.
"The most difficult period is still not over yet. The situation remains grim," the cabinet said in a summary of an emergency meeting to coordinate relief efforts.
It said the disaster, caused by the worst winter weather in half a century, was still unfolding.
China has mobilised 250,000 troops and 772,000 militia and army reservists to help keep road traffic moving and ensure power supplies. Some cities have been without electricity for more than a week and food supplies are dwindling.
Premier Wen Jiabao visited Hunan province on Friday for the second time in a week. State television showed him telling officials to redouble their efforts to restore basic services.
Wen told his cabinet that officials at all levels had to do more solid work "to ensure economic and social stability" in the face of the disaster, Xinhua reported.
Prices of vegetables in particular are rising sharply because of transport chaos. With inflation already near an 11-year high, officials are worried about the potential for unrest.
The government estimates that 223,000 houses have been toppled by snow or ice and 862,000 damaged.
Miners are working overtime and the railways are giving priority to coal shipments to alleviate the country's most serious power crisis ever.
Some 8,000 freight trains have been disrupted in the past week as toppled power lines and icy rails crippled the rail network.
Nearly 6 million passengers have also been stranded on trains or in railway stations, officials estimate. As many as 800,000 people besieged Guangzhou station at one point hoping to get home to celebrate the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar.
Many of them were migrant workers for whom the Lunar New Year is the only chance of the year to see their families.
The government has put the immediate economic losses of the crisis at about $7.5 billion. (Reporting by Alan Wheatley; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
