BEIJING - China’s travel rush kicked into high gear on Feb 9, the eve of the annual Chinese New Year holiday, with travellers cramming onto trains and planes to head back to their home towns, and families preparing for traditional reunion dinner gatherings.
The country has been adding travel capacity to help smooth transportation after harsh weather threatened trips for millions returning home for the holiday.
The vast railway network added 1,873 passenger trains on one day – a record according to state media outlet Global Times.
Railway activity ramped up after snow and freezing rain crippled train services earlier in February, with some passengers stuck on trains for hours after power supplies were cut.
Several provinces rushed to upgrade emergency response measures to remove snow that restricted traffic flow on hundreds of highways, leaving passengers stranded in cars.
The authorities worked to clear ice off power lines and train tracks, and de-ice planes and runways at airports.
In the busiest travel migration period in the world, 13.1 million passengers rode on China’s national railway on Feb 7 alone. That marked the first time during the Spring Festival travel rush, also known as Chunyun period, that daily passengers exceeded 13 million, according to the Global Times.
In Shanghai on Feb 9, railway stations across the metropolis were expected to have 475,000 passengers, an increase of 61.7 per cent over the same period in 2019, Shanghai government-owned The Paper reported.
For the two weeks leading up to the Spring Festival, the Shanghai railway network was expected to send 7.17 million passengers, exceeding the total in the same period in 2019, The Paper said.
The eight day-long holiday officially begins on Feb 10, but many travellers have opted to begin their trips earlier. It also marks a year since China fully lifted Covid-19 pandemic curbs that had disrupted the holiday in the previous three years.
The turbulent weather in central and south China during the Chinese New Year travel season, the worst seen in years, was expected to spoil trips home for hundreds of millions.
In 2008, unseasonably cold weather and ice storms across central and southern China killed at least 129 people, caused transport chaos, and cut off power and water for millions, as people struggled to get home.
Chinese weather forecasters predict normal seasonal temperatures in most areas over the next few days. REUTERS
