By Xinhua
Chaohu (China) : The Chinese army has pressed battle tanks into service to clear snow on expressways in eastern Anhup province, military sources said here Sunday.
Two tanks finished clearing 110-km of two expressways in the province Sunday, it said.
Stranded traffic stretched to miles on the Hefei-Anqing and Hefei-Wuhu expressways because of heavy snow in the past week.
The tanks were sent there Thursday evening, but it took them more than 30 hours to travel the distance that is covered in two and half hours in normal weather.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China has deployed 306,000 soldiers to combat the worst winter storm in five decades.
About 1.07 million militia and army reservists were also participating in the relief efforts.
Other military vehicles such as field kitchen trucks and armoured cars were playing an important role in clearing and rescue missions. More than 100 aircraft and helicopters remained on standby, air force sources said.
Armoured cars were busy clearing the road surface along the Beijing-Zhuhai expressway, a south-north trunk road that has been repeatedly affected by the winter storm.
On Saturday, the air force had sent three transport aircraft to help ship relief material from southern Guangdong Province to neighbouring Hunan Province.