CHENZHOU, Hunan: Twenty days of snow and icy rain on the 87-km Chenzhou section of the Beijing-Zhuhai expressway paralyzed traffic, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded.

And no one knew the gravity of the situation better than Wei Yongjing, the 53-year-old commissar of the Chenzhou military sub-region in Hunan province who led the disaster-relief team on the section.