Rail yard workers try to clear  the lines for outgoing supply trains

China’s grid-locked transport system is rumbling back to life but millions of angry travellers remained stranded all around the country, unable to return home for annual holidays.

Passengers began to flow out of airports, train stations and bus depots but it was nowhere near enough to clear a massive backlog of travellers stranded for days after the worst winter in 50 years hit at the busiest time of year.

The Lunar New Year, China’s biggest annual holiday, begins on February 7 and the government said 180-million people go home to be with their families in what is thought to be the largest annual human migration in the world.

On top of transport nightmares, weeks of heavy snow and icy conditions across vast areas have caused 7,5-billion dollars worth of damage, Zhu Hongren, a top official with China’s main economic policy agency, told a press conference.

“Such a disaster has been unprecedented in terms of the large scale and the large areas affected,” he said.

Zhu, who is coordinating several ministries on response efforts, adds ,” we are in a tough battle to ensure the safety of people and property and ensure economic stability,” said Zhu, Millions of migrant workers still trying to get back for traditional family gatherings on the weekend faced either more waiting or the prospect of a holiday away from home, despite transport woes apparently easing slightly.

In Guangzhou, the capital of southern Guangdong province, 500 000 people were waiting to leave airports and train and bus stations, according to media reports.

As the numbers grew at transport hubs in other parts of the country, local authorities were forced to beef up security to keep order.

The China Meteorological Administration said several of the worst affected provinces in central, eastern and southern China were in for further snowstorms and freezing rain this weekend.

About 11.2-million workers in Guangdong had given up hope of returning for this week’s holiday — often the only bright spot in a year of hard work for low pay - due to the massive traffic snarls, officials there said.

Only travellers with tickets for last Friday’s departures were allowed to board.

Those whose trains were cancelled earlier would have to wait until February 6 before they could repurchase tickets, travellers and press reports said.

Continued road travel disruptions were also expected as persistent freezing rain confounded efforts to de-ice highways, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The government also faces the challenge of restoring food and energy supplies to large areas at a time when output typically falls due to the holidays.

The weather has led to the evacuation of 1.76-million people, killed dozens, and affected at least 105 million people in the country of 1.3-billion, according to official figures.