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Bad weather puts extra pressure on transport
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-01-21 11:46 After being stranded for about 10 hours as a heavy
snow paralyzed a trunk Chinese railway, Fang Li finally boarded a train Friday,
rushing home for the long-awaited family reunions during the upcoming Lunar New
Year.
Moren than 100,000 passengers are stranded at Beijing West Railway Station on
Jan. 19, 2006 as some 20 trains are delayed due to the unexpected snow spell
that began to fall in a vast areas of China on Wednesday.
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Passengers wait for trains at the Beijing West
Railway Station in the Chinese capital Thursday January 19, 2006. More
than 100,000 passengers were stranded due to heavy snow on the
Beijing-Guangzhou line, adding pressure to the already crowded station.
[Xinhua]
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"I lost much time due to the heavy snow. But fortunately, I can get home on
time for the Spring Festival thanks to the emergency transportation measures
launched by the railway authority," said Fang, settled down in a temporary train
heading for her hometown in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern
China.
Fang was one of the approximately 160,000 passengers held up for hours at
various railway stations in Beijing and Zhengzhou, capital of central China's
Henan Province and also a hub of the north-south Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, due
to the unexpected snow spell that began to fall in vast areas of China on
Wednesday.
Railway stations in Beijing and Zhengzhou had launched red emergency warning
schemes, the serious degree of China's three-level passenger security emergency
system, to properly allocate stranded passengers, ensure their safety and food
supply, and arrange additional trains.
By Friday noon, the last batch of the stranded passengers in Beijing got on
temporary trains allocated by regional transportation authorities and passengers
held up in Zhengzhou are expected to board trains by Friday night, said Wang
Weijue, head of the Zhengzhou Railway Station, who had been nonstop for some 20
hours.
A record 2 billion trips are expected during the 40-day peak
travel season, from Jan. 14 to Feb. 22, challenging China's road,
rail, flight, ship transportation.
Official statistics show that the volume of passenger traffic during the
special travel season kept increasing by nearly 100 million persons year-on-year
over the past decade, forcing the government and transport authorities to impose
more working staff and equipment to tackle related problems.
Up to 90 percent of the passengers, mainly migrant rural workers and
students, usually choose to travel by bus, train or car, according to the
National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
However, Chinese flights will transport about 10 percent of the total
passengers in the long run, in stead of the current share of some 1 percent,
Wang Xiaoguang, an NDRC researcher estimated, adding that the ratio in Japan and
the United States is about 19 percent and 30 percent, respectively.
The civil flights will see a 15 million person-time transportation demand
during this Spring Festival period, which falls on Jan. 29, compared with the 6
million person-time volume registered in 2000, statistics from the General
Administration of Civil Aviation of China show.
The Taiwan-based China Airlines charter flight CI585 took off in Taipei
Friday morning and touched down at a Shanghai-based airport after a two and a
half hours' flight, signaling the first charter flight across the Taiwan Straits
for this year's Spring Festival.
A total of 72 charter flights will fly during this year's travel season
across the straits, 24 flights more than that of last year.
The Lunar New Year, which ushers in the Year of the Dog in the Chinese
zodiac, is also called the Spring Festival, and is traditionally a cherished
time for family reunions.
For most Chinese, the festival is a unique and important time of expressing
and enjoying affections among family members. However, sociologists and
economists esteem it a high time of exchange of information and various
resources between Chinese cities and rural areas.
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