China winter chaos sparks railway stampede; 1 dead

By Royston Chan and John Ruwitch

GUANGZHOU/CHENZHOU, China (Reuters) - A stampede at Guangzhou railway station killed one person when frustrated passengers rushed to board trains after days of cancellations because of fierce cold and snow, police confirmed on Sunday.

Officials warned people to stay away from railway stations because service was recovering only slowly and was further strained as trains were commandeered to deliver emergency supplies to areas of the country battered by the worst winter weather in 50 years.

The crush at Guangzhou station, which had been besieged by 260,000 people, killed a migrant worker hoping to get home to celebrate the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar, the Lunar New Year.

Authorities said it was the first stampede death of the weather crisis that has killed more than 60, mainly in road accidents.

"When the crowd surged in, people who dropped things didn't dare to stop and pick them up," said Li Liujie, a factory worker who took a train Guangzhou on Friday, the day of the accident.

"It was just too many people. There was nothing the police could do about it," Li said.

Experts forecast the freak winter could continue past Chinese New Year, which will be celebrated mid-week, and said the cold and storms in areas unaccustomed to such weather was the country's worst natural disaster in decades.

Emergency crews were still struggling to restore power to parts of southern China blacked out for a week.