By Xinhua
Beijing : An unprecedented cold spell hitting half of China has caused at least a dozen deaths, injured thousands, and stranded travellers in the freezing weather Sunday.
A bus carrying 41 people overturned on a slippery freeway in east China’s Jiangxi province early Sunday, leaving five dead and 10 others injured. The victims included three children, two of whom were dead and one seriously injured.
The provincial meteorological bureau has warned drivers as continuous sleet has covered highways and all urban and rural roads with ice.
In the mountainous Guizhou province in the southwest, a hospital in the capital city of Guiyang has received at least 1,500 patients in the last five days, most suffering fractures after falling on slippery roads.
Guizhou has reported five deaths, 1,631 collapsed homes and widespread blackouts.
At a hospital in the Buyi and Miao autonomous prefecture of Qiannan in the remote south of Guizhou, snow and sleet have cut electricity and tap water since Jan 15. A hospital had to save power by cancelling surgery to light up the emergency ward.
The local government said bad weather had also stranded more than 40,000 passengers in at least 5,000 broken-down vehicles on expressways between Guizhou and neighbouring Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
In the central Hunan province, one of the worst hit areas, seven people have died and snow is affecting the lives of 25.22 million people in 14 cities and 112 counties across the province.
Heavy snow has also blanketed Diqing, a Tibetan autonomous prefecture in the southwestern Yunnan province, starting from Jan 19. As of Sunday morning, Shangri-La had reported 35 cm of snow.
Though no deaths or injuries have been reported, the local government estimated at least 100,000 people were affected as snow has cut roads, power and drinking water, damaged at least 500 homes and destroyed at least 10,000 hectares of cropland.
In the eastern Jiangsu province, the heaviest snow since 1984 virtually closed the airport in the provincial capital of Nanjing on Sunday. In several cities, the average precipitation was around 20 mm.