The Chinese army has sent out tanks to clean the icy expressways in eastern Anhui Province.

Tanks roll on the Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway to deice the snow- and ice-covered road surface as soldiers shovel snow in Chenzhou, Central China's Hunan Province, February 3, 2008. [Xinhua]

Two tanks have finished their work Sunday, deicing 110-km surface of two expressways in the province, said military sources Sunday.

Traffic on the Hefei-Anqing and Hefei-Wuhu expressways had suffered heavy snow in the past week with thousands of vehicles stranded.

The tanks were sent there Thursday evening, but it took them more than 30 hours to cover the distance that usually costs just two and half hours in normal weather, due to the dense traffic jam on the way.

They started deicing the road on early Saturday morning, the source said.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China had deployed 306,000 soldiers to combat the worst winter storm in five decades.

About 1.07 million militia and army reservists were also participating in the relief efforts.

Other military vehicles such as field kitchen trucks and armored cars are playing an important role in de-icing and rescue missions. More than 100 aircraft and helicopters remained on standby, air force sources said.

Armored cars are busy deicing the road surface along the Beijing-Zhuhai expressway, a south-north trunk road that have been repeatedly affected by the winter storm.

On Saturday, the air force had sent three transporters to help ship relief material from southern Guangdong Province to neighboring most-affected Hunan Province.

Meanwhile, two transporters flew to the southwestern province of Guizhou, carrying 5.5 tons of relief material and equipment including food, medicine and quilts.

By 1:33 p.m. on Saturday, the first of six helicopters loaded with relief goods, deployed by the Chengdu Military Area in southwest China, flew to Yibin, Sichuan Province. The copters were to airdrop 5,500 quilts over snow-hit areas in Dazhou and Yibin's Changning County, which on top of the snow was hit by a medium-intensity earthquake early on Friday.

Editor: Yan