Chinese authority vowed more effective measures to ensure people in the snow havoc-affected remote and mountainous areas with basic food, clothing, medicine and shelter as the unusual blizzards receded.

Departments concerned should be fully aware of that the disaster relief in those outlying areas is a complex, formidable and long-term task, a conference held by the disaster relief and emergency command center under the State Council urged on Saturday night.

The meeting stressed the allocation of relief funds should be guaranteed, and the grain, oil and vegetables should be ensured to reach those remote areas short of living necessities.

The meeting pledged that every household will be replenished with cotton-padded clothes and quilts to keep them warm in the bitterly cold winter.

Fertilizers, pesticides and seeds will reach mountainous areas to help people, notably the most difficult groups, to restore farming there.

The meeting called on governments and departments of various levels to take early steps to rebuild houses flattened by the heavy snow. Outlying and mountainous areas will enjoy top-priority in using housing reconstruction funds allocated by the central government, said the meeting.

Life in snowstorm-hit areas in south and east China provinces is gradually returning to normal as disrupted transport and power supply being resumed and living conditions improved day by day amid the tempered weather. Some 6,544 power transmission lines, or 65.4 percent of the total damaged, have been restored, according to the latest statistics from the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC). And 519 of the total 725 damaged transformer substations have resumed operation.

The commanding center increased the power coal supply plan by 4.34 million tons for February and asked nearly 20 state-owned major coal mines to beef up production as 2,282 coal mines, accounting for 64 percent of the national coal production capacity, kept running during the week-long Spring Festival holiday. The current power coal stockpile has risen to 27.53 million tons, enough to fuel power stations throughout the country for 11 days on average, said SERC. Ice-stricken Guizhou Province in southwest China received an overnight sleet on Sunday, which once again brought down the temperature and froze the thawing ice on roads.

The provincial meteorological station forecast that this round of sleet may continue to Monday morning in the central and western parts of the province, exacerbating lingering ice disaster in the region, which had shown signs of thawing for the past few days.

(Xinhua News Agency February 10, 2008)