By Ben Blanchard
Wed Jan 30, 12:28 AM ET



<img src="http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6115/0uschinaweatherep1.jpg" align="left" width="350">Millions of Chinese shivered through power cuts and water shortages on Wednesday and millions more were stranded by snow that has blanketed parts of central and southern China, raising concerns about their safety.

About 50 people have died, including 25 on Tuesday in a bus crash on an icy mountain road, and Premier Wen Jiabao apologized to stranded passengers ahead of the biggest holiday of the year, the Lunar New Year, which starts on February 7.

The unusually icy temperatures, snow and sleet blanketing much of central, eastern and southern China have crippled thousands of trucks and trains loaded with coal, food and passengers in the most severe winter weather for some parts in half a century.

And the winter havoc was expected to last at least three more days, forecasters said.

"Dealing with this snow disaster is even more complicated than tackling the floods of 1998 or other natural disasters we have faced," senior relief official Wang Zhenyao told state television. "We can mobilize millions of troops to fight floods, but at the moment we can't even fly anyone in to offer relief."

Blocked roads and railways have choked coal shipments, magnifying energy shortages that have caused power brownouts in 17 of China's 31 provinces and province-status cities.

<img src="http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3896/ra382676615cn8.jpg" align="right" width="350">Efforts to clear snow-clogged roads have been hampered by shortages of solvents, with producers in the snow-free north unable to send shipments south, the China Chemical Industry News reported.

In the booming southern province of Guangdong, many power plants had just two days of coal left, the official Guangzhou Daily reported on Wednesday, and authorities were shipping in emergency supplies on a fleet of 125 cargo ships.

More than 5 million people in the central and southern provinces of Hubei, Guizhou and Jiangxi have had water supplies reduced or cut off, and parts of Guizhou have spent two weeks without power, Xinhua news agency said.
<img src="http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/4237/photodefault512x325pt9.jpg" width="350">

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080130/wl_ ... ctx3xn.3QA

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=chi ... a=N&tab=wn

Godzilla!