WITNESS: Reporting in the dark in icy New Year China

John Ruwitch is a correspondent for Reuters in south China. He has been studying or reporting on greater China since 1992, and has lived in Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong, where he is currently based. In the following story he describes three days spent in Chenzhou, a city without power for nearly two weeks. It marked his first trip to Hunan, which is known for its piquant cuisine and as the birthplace of Mao Zedong. He hopes to visit again when the lights are back on.

By John Ruwitch

CHENZHOU, China (Reuters) - I stepped nervously from the over-crowded sleeper onto the frigid platform with no hotel, no contacts and no plan other than to find out what it was like to be in a city of 4 million in the midst of a 12-day blackout.

The ride aboard the L44 train should have taken 4-1/2 hours. Across the snowbound country it had taken four times as long by the time we pulled into Chenzhou, only the second stop on a northbound slog to Beijing from the southern city of Guangzhou.

Freezing rain and snow in late January coated much of south-central China with a thick layer of ice, contorting tree branches and crumpling some 1,000 high-tension power pylons.

Chenzhou was at the heart of the freak winter disaster that halted transport and stranded millions in the days before the biggest holiday on the Chinese calendar, the Lunar Yew Year.

The slush-lined streets were alive with activity, and I learned over the next few days that stoic resignation bolstered by a dash of hope can go a long way under such conditions.

I headed to a hotel that a motorcycle driver said had power and was offered a cup of hot water at an empty dentist's office with a diesel generator chugging away on the sidewalk outside.

"This is an ice disaster," said Liu Weibin, jazz in the background. "There's nothing anybody could have done about it."