China's State Disaster Relief Commission and the Ministry of
Civil Affairs have canceled emergence alarms in seven provinces
ravaged by the worst blizzards and winter storms in decades as of
Friday.
"Currently, the Spring Festival traffic peak and the power
grid reconstruction is going on smoothly, and the shortage of coal
supply for power plants has been eased," the special command under
the State Council for the relief of the disaster said on
Saturday.
The situation in the seven southern regions, including Hunan,
Hubei, Anhui, Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangxi and Jiangxi, were gradually
back to normal, according to the center.
By 4:00 p.m. Friday, traffic on major national highways once
closed by the freezing weather had all resumed normal.
Power supply has been restored for 88 percent of the customers
in Hunan and 95 percent of those in Jiangxi by China Grid.
China Southern Power Grid also restored electricity for 21.84
million people, or 88.3 percent of its customers. More than 93
percent of households in Guangdong and Guangxi now have
electricity.
Li Pumin, spokesman for the special command said priority should
be put on the reconstruction of infrastructure facilities so as to
restore agricultural and industrial production and the life of
disaster-hit people as soon as possible.
The scale of the disaster has been immense. Li Luguo, vice
minister of civil affairs, said Friday that 354,000 homes had
collapsed, and a further 1.4 million damaged. Reconstruction will
not be complete until June, he said.
Zhang Yuxiang, chief economist of the Ministry of Agriculture,
said on Friday that 69 million farm animals had died, 30 percent of
vegetable land and 40 percent of rapeseed crop had been
affected.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Wednesday: "crops in the
disaster areas were ruined en masse and people face serious
livelihood difficulties."
The strain on the power grid is also a concern for Wen. He said:
"the strain of coal supplies for power plants has not been
fundamentally resolved".
Wen called for increased coal production, subsidies for farmers
and stable food and petrol supplies.
(Xinhua News Agency February 17, 2008）