By KUNA
Tokyo : An unprecedented cold spell hitting half of China has caused at least another dozen deaths and injured thousands.
Chinese travelers, meanwhile, continued to struggle with the transport havoc as snow and sleet threaten to paralyze air, rail and highway traffic, state-run China Daily reported Monday.
The snow, the worst in a decade in many places, has hit most of China since January 12, leaving homes collapsed, power blackouts, highways closed and crops destroyed, the daily said.
The China Meteorological Administration Monday issued a red alert for severe snowstorms forecast for central and eastern China.
A bus carrying 41 people overturned on a slippery freeway in east China’s Jiangxi Province Sunday, leaving five dead at the scene, while in central China’s Hunan Province, one of the worst hit area, seven people have died and snow is affecting the lives of 25.22 million people.
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 till Sunday, most suffering fractures after falling on slippery roads.
The Spring Festival, the most important Chinese holiday, is only 10 days away and millions of passengers are struggling to make the once-a-year trip home. Almost 150,000 passengers were stranded at Guangzhou Railway Station in the southern China over weekend after a power failure, the daily said.
Officials in Guangzhou have predicted as many as 600,000 people will be stranded at the Guangzhou railway station if the problems are not solved by Monday.