China in crisis as weather bites

Just days before Chinese New Year on February 7, the world's most populous nation is in chaos as tens, if not hundreds, of millions of workers desperately attempt to cross the country during the worst winter storms in 50 years.

At the dawn of the year in which China will host the Olympics and declare its superpower status across the globe, the Chinese are baffled and infuriated that their nation's infrastructure is incapable of getting them home for the main event in the Chinese calendar.

At railway stations, bus terminals and airports in southern and central China, mobs of travellers shove, fight and literally climb over each other in their desperate attempts to reach their families and loved ones for the annual celebration that, for the Chinese, is the equivalent of Christmas, New Year, Thanksgiving and your birthday all rolled into one.

Worst hit is the city of Guangzhou, just hours from Hong Kong, the southern-most point on the key rail artery linking the prosperous south with Beijing. It is a mecca for China's faceless and woefully paid army of migrant factory workers who quench the world's demand for cheap iPods, high-street clothing, children's toys and DVD players.

The New Year is their only annual vacation from miserable existences in sweatshop factories, where many live like prisoners in cramped barracks and work seven days a week for less than £100 a month.

"There is no way I am going to make my train," Chen Yuejin, a 32-year-old textile factory worker trying to get to Wuhan in central China, told journalists. He was one of about 30,000 people sheltering from the freezing drizzle under a Guangzhou overpass. "It looks like I am going to be here for two days waiting to leave."

The snow and ice storms, which are forecast to continue, have caused airport closures, black-outs and dozens of deaths during the last two weeks. Half a million soldiers of the People's Liberation Army have been clearing roads so that deliveries of food and coal might restart, handing out over 400,000 quilts and 200,000 down jackets to the trapped and needy.

Though many rage against the government for its slow response to the crisis, respected Premier Wen Jiabao stopped at Guangzhou station yesterday and encouraged the crowds to have patience, saying the government was working to improve the situation.

As if on cue, after a lull in the weather today, the state-run railway ministry announced train services had returned to normal, and extra trains would be scheduled to clear the backlog. "We'll transport 400,000 passengers per day in the Guangzhou area," the ministry claimed.

Few of the waiting horde hold much hope of making it home, however. After all, Chinese railway officials had expected a record 178.6m people - more than the population of Russia - to ride the trains during the holiday.

And if the masses had access to the evening TV news while cowering from the elements, they would learn that coaches are plunging from icy roads killing scores of homeward-bound travellers, school buses filled with terrified children are stuck on mountain passes for days on end, and the old and infirm are being crushed in stampedes at railway stations across the new Olympic nation. ·