Transport systems take the strain
- Source: Global Times
- [01:31 February 20 2010]
- Comments
Back to work. Crowds at Beijing Railway Station after Spring Festival draws to a close Friday. Photo: Guo Yingguang
By Fu Wen
Transport systems are taking the strain this week as hundreds of thousands of commuters return to work after the Spring Festival holiday.
At Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, almost 10,000 passengers were stranded due to heavy fog.
Some 113 flights were delayed, four cancelled and five diverted to other airports, the China News Service reported Friday.
The airport was closed from 6:30 am to 10:45 am Friday, the last day of the Spring Festival holiday. The fog brought visibility down to less than 40 meters. Most flight schedules were returned to normal at around 4 pm.
Increased traffic and severe weather also caused problems for people traveling on the highways.
Freezing temperatures on the northern part of the Beijing- Zhuhai expressway, in South China's Guangdong Province, have iced up the route over the last few days. There were a series of car accidents and a two-hour closure on Monday, the Guangzhou Daily reported on Wednesday.
Cars were backed up for more than a kilometer while waiting to pass through a toll station in Nanning, in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Extra staff and lanes were added, the Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.
Official data shows that 50.8 million people traveled on the highways during Spring Festival, an increase of 6.8 percent on last year.
About 280 million people used waterways, 1 percent more than last year.
The country's railways served about 5.44 million passengers nationwide Thursday, an increase of 12.5 percent over the same day last year, the Ministry of Railways said Friday.
The authorities of Beijing Railway Station and Beijing West Railway Station arranged 18 pairs of additional trains to cope with the travel peak, Xinhua reported. Public transport authorities mobilized more buses to ease congestions at railway stations.
