Chinese air force has shipped more than 700 tons of relief
material to victims hit by the worst winter disaster in five
decades, said the military source on Friday.
The air force sent 10 transporters to carry out more than 50
tasks since Jan. 30, the military source said.
On Thursday, two transporters flew 12 hours with about 69 tons
of relief material on board from central Henan Province to
southeastern Fujian Province, the source said.
Chinese armed force have played a key role in disaster relief
when half of the country are suffering the winter chaos caused by
freezing weather, heavy snow and icy rain.
By Thursday, 610,000 soldiers and armed police and 1.84 million
paramilitary forces had been engaged in disaster relief.
With the joint efforts by the military and civil departments,
the disaster-affected regions are slowly recovering.
All affected airports reopened Friday and electricity was partly
or fully restored to 164 snow-stricken counties Wednesday,
including Chenzhou city in Hunan Province which had suffered
blackout for about two weeks.
The Ministry of Communications said Friday that the coal storage
at coal-fired power plants in disaster-affected regions has
rebounded to normal level thanks to increased trans-shipments from
coal-rich northern regions.
About 16.34 million tons of coal has been shipped from four
major ports in the north between Jan. 25 and Feb. 7, up 29 percent
over the same period last year.
The weather department predicted sunny weather and higher
temperatures in next two days in disaster-hit regions but warned
that melting snow could lead to a new round of problems.
(Xinhua News Agency February 9, 2008)