China on Friday (Feb 9) kickstarted the preparations for the Lunar New Year holiday with people cramming onto trains, and boarding planes in order to get back to their hometown for celebrations.
The country has been ramping up travel connectivity in order to ease the transportation facility after extreme weather conditions posed challenges for the ones heading home for the traditional reunion dinner gatherings.
Nearly 1,873 passenger trains were added in a day across a vast railway network, a record according to state media outlet Global Times.
Railway activity was back to the fore after freezing rain and snow hampered train services earlier in the week.
Some of the passengers were stuck on trains for hours after power supplies were cut.
Many provinces rushed to heighten emergency response efforts in order to remove snow that blocked traffic flow on several highways, leaving passengers stranded in cars.
The authorities also made efforts to clear the snow off power lines, and train tracks and de-ice planes and runways at airports.
13.1 million passengers travel aboard China’s national railway
On Wednesday (Feb 7), nearly 13.1 million passengers travelled on China’s national railway making it one of the busiest travel migration periods in the world.
This marked the very first time that the Spring Festival travel rush, which is also known as the Chunyun period, exceeded 13 million in aday, as per Global Times.
On Friday, railway stations across Shanghai were expected to have 475,000 passengers, which is a hike of 61.7% over the same period in the year 2019, metropolis’ government-owned The Paper reported.
For nearly two weeks leading up to the Spring Festival, the Shanghai railway network was expected to carry 7,170,900 passengers, surpassing the total during the same period in the year 2019, The Paper said.
The holiday which lasts for about eight days every year, begins on Saturday (Feb 10). However, many people like to start with their travel plans a bit earlier.
This time the celebrations also mark a year since China fully lifted coronavirus curbs that had disrupted the holiday for almost three years.
(With inputs from agencies)
