Workers from the Guiyang Power Supply Bureau of China Southern Power Grid recover a collapsed pole in a remote mountain area.

2008-02-15 07:27

On Feb 8, the second day of the Chinese New Year, Li Chunxia of the Dong ethnic minority in the southwest province of Guizhou carried her five-month-old daughter on her back and made her way home.

Adding to the weight were boxes of apples and other new year gifts she bore on a pole, but Li found the journey particularly trying with the inches of slippery ice and snow under her feet.

The mother and child had been trudging through the cold for more than four hours.

After more than a year away from home as she toiled away in the city, Li had been looking forward to going home this year for Spring Festival -- especially after the recent birth of her daughter.

With two more hours to go before they reached home, the 24-four-year-old Dong woman was not giving up.

"I would like to have my parents and relatives see my daughter as soon as possible," she said.

More than a fortnight of heavy snow and sleet had transformed her home province -- known as one of the most favored tourist destinations in China because of its evergreen, verdant landscape and myriad of ethnic groups -- into a cold, unaccommodating world.

The prolonged blizzards and severe cold were the result of the La Nina weather phenomenon and abnormal atmospheric circulation, meteorologists had said.

Guizhou has been the worst hit, with more than 5,000 power transmission lines and about 700 transformer substations -- accounting for 78 percent of the total power supply facilities in the province -- damaged by the ice.

About 17 million people, or close to half of the province's population, have been affected, said Tang Siqing, general manager of China Southern Power Grid Guizhou Branch.

Li was not alone in her steely resolve to battle the worst snowfall in half a century.

Up on the mountain ranges and thousands of kilometers of slippery slopes in the province were about 27,000 relief and recovery personnel -- mostly electricians and troops mobilized from across the country -- racing against time to repair power facilities severely damaged by the blizzards and help millions of families enjoy warm reunions.

Among those repairing the damage was Xiao Junqiang, an electrician from Hainan Power Grid who has just restored an electricity tower that had collapsed under the severe weight of ice on top of a mountain in Kaili county.

The 20-year veteran of the trade said he never seen such huge icicles on power cables in his work across the country.

"I hope our work will soon bring life back to normal for the Miao and Dong villages," he said.

Repair efforts in the past few days had made 3,441 power lines operational again by Sunday, Tang said, while 503 out of the 700 transformer substations had resumed operations.

In some remote villages, residents have managed to access electricity with the help of generators in time for new year festivities.

To celebrate their triumph over the blackouts, women and girls in the Miao village of Qingshan in Zhouxi town dressed up in traditional attire, while men and boys played their best tunes on the lusheng, a traditional wind instrument.

A complete recovery of the power network can be expected by the end of next month, and electricity will be available in all the villages of Guizhou, Tang said.