Snow-Hit Provinces Have Power Resumed in All Villages

Power supply has been resumed in all villages in the most severely snow-ravaged provinces of Guangdong and Guizhou, local authorities said on Friday.

In land-locked Guizhou, all the 11,069 villages that suffered power cuts since mid January have had electricity back by 11:00 AM, according to the power grid company of China Southern Power Grid (CSG).

Guizhou is the worst hit, where ice damaged more than 5,000 power transmission lines and about 700 transformer substations, accounting for 78 percent of the province's total power supply facilities, and 17 million, or nearly half of the province's population were affected.

The rural power grid were almost completely destroyed. A total of 4,952 power transmission lines of in the rural areas were destroyed, accounting for 79.17 percent of the rural power grid, affecting about 20 million rural dwellers.

So far, 4,864 of the damaged power lines have been fixed, making up 98 percent of the total. A CSG spokesman said, the company have sent another 4,000 workers to repair the rest damaged lines.

CSG has also reconnected with all villages in snow-stricken Guangdong and Yunnan provinces, and in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Friday.

Consecutive snows since mid January led to collapse of 126,247 pylons, 2,686 above 110 kv. The disaster also suspended 859 transformer substations and affected 26.18 million residents in 99 counties in the CSG coverage.

More than 160,000 workers had been mobilized to repair the damaged power facilities since the disaster, said the CSG spokesman.

In central Hubei Province, more than one million rural households have finally had electricity back in Enshi Tu and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, the last place that suffered power cuts in the province.

The worst snow disaster in 50 years suspended power supply to 1,253,882 households with an economic loss of 85.72 million yuan in Hubei. Enshi was the most severely hit one.

By Thursday, more than one million workers were sent to the stricken areas and two of them sacrificed their lives during the repair operation.

According to statistics of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission of China on Friday, a total of 36,000 power transmission lines were damaged in the country by the disaster. By now, 89 percent of the damaged power facilities have been repaired.

However, nine provinces still face power shortage, including Zhejiang, Hunan, Sichuan, Guangdong Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, Chongqing municipality, Tibet and Guangxi, according to the commission.

Freaky winter storms have plagued southern China since mid-January, leading to widespread traffic jams, structural collapses, blackouts and crop losses in 19 provinces, leaving at least 80 people dead and 100 million people affected, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

(Xinhua News Agency March 1, 2008)