Transport chaos in snow-hit China

Parts of China have seen their heaviest snow falls in 50 years

The heaviest snow in decades is continuing to cause chaos across China ahead of the busy Lunar New Year holiday, state media have reported.

Road and rail links have been paralysed, thwarting travellers trying to return home for the festivities.

A blocked rail line has stranded about 500,000 people in the southern city of Guangzhou and officials are working to prevent riots, reports say.

In Guizhou, 25 people died when a bus plunged from an icy road, Xinhua said.

The snowstorms, which began on 10 January, have now affected 80 million people across 14 provinces.

The central provinces of Hunan and Hubei have been hardest hit, but eastern provinces are also affected.

The job of ensuring coal, electricity and oil supplies and adequate transportation has become quite severe Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao

Houses and agricultural land have been destroyed, leading to economic losses totalling Y22.09bn ($3bn, £1.5bn), Xinhua said.

At least 24 people have been killed in weather-related accidents, the agency said, but this figure appears not to include traffic accidents.

More snow

Transport woes have been exacerbated by the fact that millions of people, many of them migrant workers, are travelling to visit their families for the Chinese New Year holiday, beginning on 7 February.

Trains across the region have been cancelled or delayed

In Guangzhou, about half a million people have been unable to travel because snow in Hunan has blocked a key rail link with Beijing.

Officials were trying to accommodate the stranded passengers, who were creating camps around the station.

Police and soldiers were also on the scene to control the crowd, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Highways connecting Guangzhou and Hunan have also been blocked, with 20,000 vehicles stranded on one expressway, Xinhua said.

In one of them was a man taking 10 children to visit their migrant worker parents in Guangdong.

Temporary shelters have been arranged at Guangzhou station

"Today is our fifth day on the bus," he told the agency. "Every day we each get two packs of instant noodles to eat."

Tens of thousands more people were said to be waiting at stations across central and eastern China, while flights have been delayed or cancelled.

More snow is forecast for central regions in the next few days, making an early end to the chaos unlikely.

Power shortages have also become a problem, with Premier Wen Jiabao warning of serious difficulties.

"Due to the rain, snow and frost, plus increased winter use of coal and electricity and the peak travel season, the job of ensuring coal, electricity and oil supplies and adequate transportation has become quite severe," he said at a cabinet meeting on Sunday.

Stockpiles of coal - upon which many of China's power stations depend - are reported to be low and 17 provinces have introduced blackouts to ration power.