Snow, fog, rain likely to disrupt festival travel

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-01 17:12

Snow, fog and rain across China are expected to cause seasonal trouble for millions of Chinese travellers returning from their home provinces this week as the Lunar New Year holiday draws to a close.

Passengers wait to enter a subway station after their arrival at the Beijing Railway Station in Beijing, Feb. 1, 2009. Snow, fog and rain across China are expected to cause seasonal trouble for millions of Chinese travellers returning from their home provinces this week as the Lunar New Year holiday draws to a close. [Agencies]

The Chinese Lunar New Year break, or Spring Festival, is the more important of two "Golden Week" holidays, which give migrant workers chances to return home with gifts for their families. The other "Golden Week" is the National Day holiday.

It amounts to the biggest annual movement of humanity in the world.

Last year, it was disrupted by the worst winter weather in the south in decades. This year, hundreds of thousands lost their jobs when factories shut down in the south and went home early, but the global financial crisis failed to dampen tourism because the holiday is still a big event for Chinese.

Meteorological departments in the eastern provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu and Liaoning issued heavy fog warnings on Sunday morning.

The National Meteorological Centre also forecast fog in parts of Liaoning, Sichuan, Guizhou, Henan, Zhejiang and other provinces.

"The country is warned to brace for a new round of rain and snow in the following three days, which will hamper festival transport," the observatory said.

Light to moderate snowfall is forecast in parts of Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang province, Tibet and areas along the Yellow and Huaihe rivers.

So far, however, the number of traffic accidents is down 57.6 percent compared with the same period last year.

The Ministry of Public Security said road accidents killed more than 700 people and injured another 2,100 from January 25 to 31, falling by 37.3 and 58.3 percent respectively.

Some 273,000 police have been busy trying to keep order on the roads, cracking down on speeding, overloading and other offences, the ministry said.