Snow storms cause deaths in China ahead of Lunar New Year

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2008

BEIJING (AFP) — The worst snows to hit parts of China for 50 years killed at least a dozen people at the weekend, state media said, with thousands more injured as they headed home for the Lunar New Year holiday.

The conditions brought traffic to a standstill in eight provinces, cut off a key rail link and left thousands of vehicles marooned on icy highways, reports said, with the cold snap causing power cuts across more than half the country.

A bus that overturned on an icy freeway in eastern Jiangxi Province left five dead early Sunday, including at least two children, the official Xinhua news agency said, with sub-zero temperatures forecast for the next three days.

Heavy snow in south central China, meanwhile, snarled roads, railways and airports with the...