Twenty five people were killed on Tuesday in China when a bus skidded off an icy road. These are the latest casualties in what appears to be a severe winter that has crippled the transport in the country during the busiest time of the travel season and left hundreds of thousand people stranded. With the Chinese New Year coming on February 7, people are trying to get home as this is the only time of the year when they can go,

According to railway officials, at least 500,000 people were stranded at the main train station in Guangzhou. Due to heavy snowfall in the Northern provinces transport and communication were affected. Parts of the busy railway line that starts in Beijing were cut due to the snow.

The bus accident brings the death toll to almost 50 in two weeks.

According to the Xinhua News Agency, the bus went off the road around 7:40 a.m., plunging almost 40 yards in a valley in the Guizhou province.

Form the 38 passengers on the bus, the rest of 13 were injured. Two of them were in the hospital in critical condition, the others 11 presenting themselves in less serious condition, the Associated Press reports.

The government put the stranded travelers in schools and convention centers for temporary shelter in order to prevent riots among the crowds.

Police officers and soldiers were deployed at the main train station to control the crowd.

On Monday the government said that it will raise the output of gasoline, coal and power in order to relieve shortages during the severe winter.

Some of the commuters understood that is only the weather to blame, but others are not giving up and are still hoping that they will get home for the holidays, the only time of the year when they can go home.

The bad weather affected over 67 million people in China and caused losses of $ 2.5 billion, according to the Civil Affairs Ministry.