Road traffic also has been affected due to accumulated snow on highways across the blizzard-affected areas.

Sections of the Nanchang-Jiujiang expressway in Jiangxi province were closed and traffic jams as long as 20 kilometers formed in the city of Jiujiang. Traffic on expressways in Guizhou and Anhui provinces was slowed down due to slippery roads, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

"By 4 pm, more than 250 coach services from our station had been canceled because buses from other provinces such as Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang could not reach here. The driving speed was limited on most highways in the cities of Hangzhou, Shanghai and Nantong," said Zhang Yongbin, director of the Shanghai General Long-Distance Bus Station.

All passengers on canceled services had been transferred to available bus lines or other modes of transport, he said.

In Yunnan, the freezing weather also disrupted the operations of power transformer substations and transmission lines in eight cities. The ice on the lines was more than 21 millimeters thick in parts.

"To ensure an orderly Spring Festival travel period and power supply, electricity company employees are rushing to repair ice-covered lines," said Liao Zelong, general manager of the Yunnan branch of China Southern Power Grid.

The National Meteorological Center forecast most regions in South and East China will see more ice and snow in the next three days.