Adult diapers on China's packed railways
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-24 19:14

Migrant workers in south China are wearing adult diapers on packed trains heading home for the Lunar New Year holiday because they have no access to a toilet, state media said on Tuesday.

Passengers queue up to buy train tickets at a ticket booth in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province January 10, 2005. As the winter holidays for universities and colleges are coming, many students flock to the train stations or ticket booths for tickets in the run-up to Spring Festival, which falls on February 9 this year.[newsphoto]

About 120 million peasants from China's vast rural areas swarm the cities for work and all try to make it home for the holiday, filling all standing room on trains and making access to the toilet impossible during trips often lasting 24 hours or more.

"During the peak travel period last year, some passengers even became deranged on their journeys because of the conditions and jumped out of the carriages," media report said.

The Lunar New Year, which this year starts on January 29, is the biggest holiday in the Chinese-speaking world and family reunions prompt arguably the biggest movement of humanity on Earth.

Many supermarkets in southern Foshan had reported a 50 percent increase in sales of adult diapers for the train trips, the report said.

Domestic media said railways in China had transported 3.8 million people alone on Monday, an all-time high.