(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-30 16:32

CHANGSHA - An electrician has died of a heart attack on the top of a 21-meter electricity pylon, while another died after falling from a broken power line pole, State Grid sources said on Wednesday.

The news came just one day after Premier Wen Jiabao visited the family members of three electricians who died on Saturday when cleaning the ice from a transmission tower.

Cao Xianglin, 42, a worker with the Hunan division of the State Grid, had been working on emergency missions in the mountains of Hunan Province since January 13 as pylons and cables collapsed under the weight of snow and ice, according to a spokesman from the Hunan division.

Working overtime for more than two weeks, he was already exhausted when he was assigned to fix a cable failure at a transmission tower in Chenzhou on Tuesday afternoon. After finishing his work he dropped down dead of a heart attack.

Another worker at the Hunan division, Xiao Jianhua, died at work on Monday morning. The 37-year-old man fell 10 meters from the top of a power line pole when it collapsed under the weight of snow.

More than 10,000 workers from the Hunan division have been deployed to repair the grid, which has suffered damage from the snow and ice. Before the deaths of Cao and Xiao, three others from the division had died at work and 104 were injured.

Zhou Jinghua, Luo Haiwen and Luo Changming of the Hunan division were thrown to the ground when a 50-meter tower collapsed. Zhou died on the spot and the other two workers died later in hospital.

"As I face you here today, I cannot find enough words to express my condolences. Please accept a bow from me," Premier Wen told the families of the three on Tuesday as he bowed to them.

The snow, the heaviest in decades in many places, has been falling in east, central and south China for more than a fortnight. It has caused deaths, structural collapses, blackouts, highway closures and crop destruction.

More than 77.86 million people had been affected by the snow in 14 provinces, including Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan, by 2:00 p.m. on Monday, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.