Airports in Hunan and East China's Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi provinces as well as expressways have also been temporarily closed.

More than 20 flights in Shanghai were affected by the harsh weather.

In the Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong Province, more than 10 flights were cancelled while many heading for East China provinces were delayed, stranding at least 1,200 people on Saturday. Authorities with the airport estimated that about 3,000 passengers were affected due to persistent snow over the couple of days.

Heavy snow since mid-January, the worst in 50 years in China's southern, central and eastern areas, has affected tens of millions of people, forced the relocation of hundreds of thousands, led to power cuts, collapsed buildings, damaged crops and left thousands of head of livestock dead.

Five people died in a snow-related accident in Hunan, another three in southwestern Guizhou Province.

In central Hubei Province, two more deaths were reported in snow-related accidents, while 10.24 million people from 17 cities and prefectures were plagued by disasters.

The snow, which toppled down 23,000 houses and damaged 650,000 hectares of crops, imposed a direct economic loss of 2.79 billion yuan (US$385 million) in the province.

Communication and power supply were cut in some areas of Guizhou Province, Southwest China, where 3.77 million cell phone users, or 45 percent of the total in the mountainous province, found their cell phones in weak or even no signals.

Across the country, millions of people are trying to return home for the Spring Festival, the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year that falls on February 7 this year, putting heavy pressure on the already-stressed transport system.

The Ministry of Railways predicted that China's railways would carry an unprecedented 178.6 million passengers during the travel peak from January 23 to March 2, up from 156 million last year.

Meteorological authorities have forecast the latest round of heavy snow would last till Monday.