This week's unprecedented snowfall in Shanghai has forced highways to be shut for hours at a time, caused massive delays at Hongqiao Airport and packed hospital waiting rooms.

Police closed off some elevated roads and seriously iced streets yesterday due to safety concerns, but all highways in the city were reopened before 3:26pm yesterday.

All local highways had been shut down by yesterday morning because of the snow. Speed limits were lowered to 60 kilometers per hour on the reopened highways yesterday morning, according to the Shanghai Highway Administration.

Nearly 40 tons of salt had been spread on local streets to help melt the ice and snow by 5:30am yesterday and some 3,200 traffic police officers and workers from other city departments were called in to help direct traffic and clear up icy streets since Thursday evening.

Police said the snow didn't cause any deadly car accidents since Thursday, but the wet, icy streets caused lots of trouble for drivers who aren't used to snow.

From 7am to 7pm on Thursday, there were 86 car accidents on local roads, much higher than the usual average of 40 accidents a day, according to the police.

Icy streets forced drivers to cut their driving speed by more than half and resulted in soaring number of collisions and skids, many of which happened at the exits and entrances to the elevated roads, police said.

Administration authorities sprayed some 10 tons of salt to melt ice on the elevated roads and bridges by 11:30pm on Thursday.

The city's public sanitation bureau began emergency work on Wednesday and Thursday's night immediately after the rush hour to clear up ice on major downtown streets.

Snow on the downtown's 79 main roads and the Nanpu and Yangpu bridges has almost been cleared.

Measures have also been taken to ensure the snow doesn't delay the collection of household garbage in the city.

Local hospitals witnessed a huge increase in injuries to people who fell down on slippery roads since Thursday night.

Shanghai No. 6 People's Hospital said it has received more than 500 fracture patients from 10pm on Thursday to yesterday noon. Officials from Ruijin Hospital said it received 46 patients as of yesterday afternoon, double its usual patient load.

Snow on Thursday night also forced the closure of Shanghai Hongqiao Airport for several hours yesterday morning, delaying many passengers.

Legions of passengers expressed their dissatisfaction with the service provided by air carriers including China Eastern Airlines Co.

'The plane to Jinan should have taken off at 8:05am, and now the delay is forcing me to cancel my ticket,' said Lu Hongyu.

Another passenger Zhang Bo said he was set to attend his friend' wedding in Beijing tomorrow. 'But now it seems impossible. No plane, no meal, no explanation. Nothing is available except waiting.'

Police had to be called in to maintain order in the departure lounge as angry travelers clashed with employees of China Eastern Airlines.

'The delay is mostly because of the weather,' said Yu Yanhua, an employee of the carrier.

Temperatures today will be minus 5 degrees Celsius overnight, with a daily high of zero degrees. There will be serious frost in the suburbs, according to the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.

The forecast forced weathermen to issue a black low-temperature alert, the highest level on the scale, yesterday afternoon, for the first time this winter.

The chill has increased demand for power as residents turn up their heaters.

More than 800 companies have been forced to shift production to night hours since Wednesday to spread power use in the day and cut back on peak demand by about 150,000 kilowatts, the Shanghai Electric Power Co announced yesterday.

The company has also managed to buy 200,000 kilowatts from other provinces, despite nationwide winter power shortages.

So far nearly 9,000 firms have rescheduled their production to prevent the grid from collapsing under heavy demand.

2005/01/01
Source:Shanghai Daily News