Although all ice-covered highways have reopened in Guizhou province, icy roads are causing car accidents in some sections.

An accident involving 10 vehicles happened at around 10 pm on Monday at the Xiuwen section of Lanzhou-Haikou highway, injuring four people and disrupting traffic for five hours, China Central Television reported on Tuesday.

"A truck slipped sideways due to the icy road, and the cars behind couldn't brake in time so they rear-ended one another," Li Yong, a traffic officer at the scene, was quoted as saying.

"My car was about 30 meters from the truck in front of me, and I was driving slowly, but I just couldn't stop because the road was too slippery. So my car ran into it from the behind," a driver said in the footage.

The number of traffic accidents a day is 73 percent less than during the havoc caused by freezing in Guizhou in 2008, according to the provincial department of public security. Only 92 accidents occurred from Friday night to Monday on highways and major roads under the management of the provincial traffic police team.

However, two traffic officers have been killed on duty in the past three days. Zhu Qing, a traffic officer in Guizhou, died on Saturday after being hit by a truck while evacuating stranded vehicles on the Shanghai-Kunming highway.

Wang Liguo, a traffic officer in the neighboring Hunan province, was hit and killed by a car when he was dealing with an accident on Monday.

(China Daily January 5, 2011)