Heavy snow that began falling in southwest China Tuesday night has disrupted traffic, shut airports and collapsed train station shelters, and freezing weather has left thousands of homes without tap water in Chongqing.

In the hardest-hit Guizhou Province, the Guiyang Longdongbao International Airport in the capital Guiyang was forced to shut from Tuesday night to Wednesday noon.

At the Guiyang Train Station, two people were hospitalized when the station's shelter collapsed under the weight of snow early Wednesday morning.

Neither of them were seriously hurt and one of them has been discharged from hospital, said the train station spokesman.

More snow is expected in Guizhou Thursday, according to the provincial Meteorological Observatory.

In the neighboring Chongqing Municipality, more than 10,000 people in Qianjiang District have been out of tap water since Monday afternoon as freezing temperatures have caused water meters and pipelines to break.

Repairmen are working round the clock to fix the facilities.

More than 800 vehicles over a length of 10 km were stranded on ice-coated Guiyang-Xinzhai Expressway Wednesday morning, according to the traffic police.

(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2011)