China: Many Stranded, Dead, Due To Worst Weather In 50 Years

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- China has taken the step of asking millions of migrant workers to forgo their annual Lunar New Year trip home, saying the worst winter weather in 50 years is expected to pummel the country for at least another three days.

"For the sake of their safety, and relieving the stress on transport, I advise migrant workers to stay in the cities where they work," Zheng Guogang, chief of the China Meteorological Administration, told the state newspaper, China Daily.

The trip is often the only bright spot for workers who toil all year long in factories far from home. For an estimated 178 million people -- the size of the combined population of Italy, France and Britain -- the annual trek is sometimes the only opportunity to see family that they leave behind. This year, the holiday begins February 6.

So far, Chinese authorities have managed to persuade nearly 470,000 people to abandon their travel plans and accept a refund for their train tickets.

The weather has paralyzed transportation, frozen the power grid, killed at least 63 people and delivered a $4.5 billion blow to the economy.

By late Wednesday, 12 national highways across six provinces remained impassable in areas. In Guangzhou -- a city in the south -- about 800,000 people remained stranded unable to take either bus or train, local media said.

From CNN

The article is very interesting and talks about how apparently a lot of these people will be getting refunds for their train tickets and air tickets. I only wonder how much the Chinese officials are covering up, because we know the poor human rights issues there. Plus numbers are almost always skewed when in comes to foreign news stories.

This has to be bad, considering how China already gets bad snow storms. They already have at least a million police "to help keep roadways open".

[edit on 1/2/2008 by Nyorai]

[edit on 1/2/2008 by Nyorai]

And this from the BBC

it really sucks for all those hardworking
underpaid men and women who dont get
to see there families as soon as they can.
but they will be able to go home after a week or so,
right?
i hope so

It's not like Chinese Government cares about it. Besides, China got over billion people, right?

reply to post by TheoOne


That's true. But it's strange a high ranking official apologized (which as noted in the article is rare).

This weather is supposed to last at least another week. I have a looming fear that after a few months more accurate casualty figures will surface. It is already (claimed) at some 70 dead and hundreds of thousand stranded.

Now, i am not really a conspiracy minded person (believe it or not). I believe in reason and logic, and to be honest the technology I have heard that would cause it (from Uncle Tom Bearden) is bunk (from my best understanding and instruction).

So, with that preface, one would have to wonder about the timeliness of this. Is it "wild weather" or something more malicious and intentional?

I believe this is a HAARP activity. Has China already not stated that it has the tech to not make it rain during the '08 olympics? Would that tech not also be able to control snow? (Tech besides cloud seeding)

This is today's news press. reporting 240,000 peopel been stacked in GuangZhou railway station. armed police been dispatched to protect the crowd.
v.youku.com...=.html

I just remembered that there has been a big cold spell around the world, with places getting snow that rarely do.

This might be a good time to invade almost anywhere in Asia since both the weather is bad and internet has been cut (which in itself has some serious questions to be explained).