The heaviest March snowstorm to hit northeast China in 56 years disrupted air and road traffic and cut off power and water supplies in many parts of the coastal city of Dalian on Sunday.

 

Gusts of up to 110 kilometers per hour cut power cables, shutting down 11 of the city's 25 220-kv power supply stations at 10:36 p.m.

 

The power failure hit suburban Lushunkou and Jinzhou districts, Wafangdian city and parts of the eastern and western urban areas, and subsequently cut the water supply and central heating in some urban areas.

 

Dalian Thermoelectricity Group, the city's largest central heating supplier, was forced to cut heating for 40 percent of its users at midnight, leaving thousands of urban families shivering as the mercury dropped to minus seven degrees Celsius.

 

Dalian power company carried out emergency repairs through the night and by Monday morning it had reconnected the city power grid and restored more than half of the transformer stations, said Zhao Weijun, a senior engineer from the company.

 

But the company is yet to restore the power supply in Wafangdian city and four islands in Changhai county, where facilities were badly disrupted by the blizzard, he said.

 

The Dalian weather bureau reported 56 millimeters of rain and snow from the blizzard that started on Saturday night and lasted until the small hours of Monday.

 

Rain and snow hit most parts of northeast China. There were 36 millimeters in Liaoning's provincial capital Shenyang and 68 mm in Dandong, according to the Shenyang Meteorological Observatory.

 

The snow stood two meters high in some areas.

 

Power transmission had resumed Monday afternoon in most of the damaged parts of the northeast China grid, according to power company sources.

 

Meanwhile, the Dalian and Dandong airports in Liaoning, and the airport in Changchun, capital of Jilin Province, reopened on Monday afternoon.

 

But Taoxian International Airport in Shenyang, which was closed at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, will not reopen until 8 p.m. Monday. At least 1,000 passengers were stranded and 144 flights canceled at the airport.

 

The snow, which also hit many others parts of north China such as Beijing and Tianjin, has killed at least five people.

 

Three people were confirmed dead and seven injured when two marketplaces, one in Shenyang and the other in Jinzhou, collapsed under the weight of the snow on Sunday, the Liaoning provincial government said.

 

Two people died after a workshop in a Tianjin bicycle parts production factory collapsed under the snow. The municipality also reported collapses of workshops, storehouses and marketplaces in more than ten places.

 

More than 1,100 ramshackle homes collapsed in the high wind on Sunday in Liaoning Province and another 1,300 were damaged, though no casualties have been reported, said a spokesman with the provincial civil affairs department, adding that the city government had arranged temporary lodging for these people.

 

Shenyang, a city of more than 7 million people, barred most vehicles from the roads on Monday except buses, ambulances and snow ploughs to ensure the snow is cleared away.

 

Most citizens were told to stay home. Classes will be suspended for a second day on Tuesday for all the 900,000 primary and middle school students in Shenyang to allow snow clearing work to proceed.

 

Meanwhile, many expressways in Liaoning were still closed on Monday.

 

Neighboring Jilin province reported 17.6 mm of rain and snow by 2:00 a.m. Monday and residents were bracing for Monday night temperatures of minus 18 to minus 21. At least four cities have told students to stay home.

 

"I took a bus ride to Changchun on Sunday night. With the expressway closed and secondary roads blocked by snow drifts, the trip took more than five hours," said Yan Guangxin from Panshi city which is normally two hours away from Changchun, capital of neighboring Jilin Province.

 

An ambulance that was rushing an unconscious 79-year-old to hospital in Changchun was stranded in the blizzard for six hours until 5:00 a.m. Monday. "Fortunately the patient received treatment on the way and is in a stable condition now," said Wang Dongxia, a doctor at the city's first-aid center.

 

In Heilongjiang province further north, precipitation reached the highest level in 56 years with 49 mm of snow in Dongning, 46 mm along the Suifen River and 41 mm in Jixi.

 

The blizzard continued in most parts of the province on Monday and is expected to weaken in the afternoon, said Gao Yuzhong, head of the provincial meteorological bureau.

 

Nearly 30,000 passengers were stranded in railway stations in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, or on trains or buses, provincial authorities said.

 

Twenty-four trains in Harbin were delayed because of the snow. But flights at Harbin Airport were not affected.

 

All primary and middle school students were told to stay home in Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang. The city experienced 37 mm of snowfall.

 

Beijing also experienced rain and snow over the weekend and the temperature dropped to one degree Celsius.

 

An expressway connecting the Chinese capital with Lhasa in southwestern Tibet Autonomous Region remained closed on Monday. The Inner Mongolian section of the expressway witnessed 28 accidents on Saturday, involving 44 vehicles, which left three people dead and 21 injured.

 

The central meteorological observatory described the snow and rain as "unusual" for this time of the year and having hit most parts of the northeast, northwest and north China. The observatory has forecast more rain in some northern Chinese cities on Monday and Tuesday.

 

In an interview with Xinhua on Monday, a spokesman of the Ministry of Railways said the snowstorm had delayed 150 passenger trains, including trains between Harbin and Dalian, Beijing and Qinhuangdao, and Qinhuangdao and Shenyang.

 

Most trains were disrupted by snow on the track, sometimes piled two meters high, he said.

 

The railway authority is trying to resume traffic within 48 hours to meet the growing demand from holiday makers who need to return to work after Sunday's Lantern Festival, traditionally considered the end of the Chinese New Year holiday.

 

Meteorologists said the rain and snow, the heaviest this winter, would help alleviate a severe drought that had caused a drinking water shortage for nearly 5 million people and more than 2.5 million head of livestock nationwide.

 

Shandong Province, the second most populous region in China, received an average 41 mm of rain over the weekend, which eased the drought that has plagued the province since September, according to the provincial water resources department.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2007)