Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Guangzhou railway station this morning to meet the stranded passengers and help direct disaster relief work in Guangdong Province.

In Guangzhou railway station, Wen offered early Spring Festival wishes to the passengers, who were stuck at Guangzhou railway station after a power failure caused by snow, ice and sleet, which paralyze the trunk line between Beijing and Guangzhou.

"I am deeply apologetic that you are stranded in the railway station and can not go home earlier," Wen told the passengers, "We are now doing our best to fix things up and the transportation will be better as soon as the power line repair." he added.

Later, he held meetings with officials from Guangdong on the disaster relief work.

The southern end of the Beijing-Guangzhou rail line, a north-south trunk railway, has been paralyzed because of heavy snow in Hunan province, where power transmission facilities have been knocked out.

Some 98 trains will resume tomorrow, and the Guangzhou railway station operation will return to normal within a week, if the weather not getting worsen, according to the station’s department of passenger traffic.

The congested expressway linking Beijing with Zhuhai in Guangdong is expected to reopen before 6 PM today. 50 vehicles are now clearing the ice on the road.

As of 4 PM yesterday (January 29), a total of 125 flights taking off from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport were delayed due to the harsh weather, with 34 flights canceled. 14,000 passengers stayed at the airport. In the coming days, some more flights will be delayed and flights to Changcha and Nanchang will be canceled.

The government has taken emergency response measures to evacuate passengers to the nearby Liuhua Canton Fair Complex. Water, food, blankets and clothes were also sent to other people in need.

Guangzhou government has opened other shelters for the passengers and offered the free transportation between the shelters and the railway station, thanks to the three biggest bus companies in the city.

To help ease pressure on the railways, Guangdong governor Huang Huahua has urged the migrant workers stranded in the province to stay in Guangdong for the New Year.

When he visited the station on January 28, Huang promised to provide free transport to those who would like to return to their companies for the Spring Festival.

Editor: Yan