The worst snow of the past half century
It has snowed, snowed and snowed lately, in China, a record in the last 50 years! It has fallen more than 1.5 meters of snow during 2 weeks, with the worst going to the middle provinces of China: Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, etc.
Every year, more than 100 millions Chineses who worked abroad (in another city) return to their hometown to spend the Spring festival (Chinese New Year) with family. For some migrant workers, that might be the only holidays in the year. So within 2 weeks before and after the Spring festival, the chinese public transport system is working at their pick to bring these people back and forth, train, bus and airplane.
However for this year, the snow storm just happen during the week of people returning home, trains, buses and flights were cancelled. Millions people were trapped on their way home, some were stuck at the train stations or airports. With many cities now at orange or red alert level, nothing will move and many of them will be forced to spend Spring festival abroad.
800,000 people were stuck at the Guangzhou train station while trains were cancelled. Many of them persist in staying their, hoping to be lucky enough to board on a train when traffic resumes.
Shanghai’s Hongqiao airport was also crowed by people returning home, flights were cancelled because the middle of China is in such bad condition.
People lining up to buy ticket to return home. Many had to wait overnight under the snow and cold. Even though it’s barely -2 °C people here are not used to the prolonged cold of northern countries.
At least 300,000 soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army are deployed to help cleaning the mess on highways and railroads. More than 1.5 million soldiers are on standby.
Heavy military equipment was deployed to de-ice the link between Beijing and Guangzhou.
Unfortunately for their effort, appropriate tools were lacking, shoveling a runway by hands isn’t the most productive way…
Some of the most seriously affected rural regions are deprived of water and electricity, some for over a month already. In the larger cities like Shanghai, energy reserves are at their lowest, alarming level because of supply interruption.
A city in Anhui province curiously resembles to a city in Canada…
This one is a city in Jiangxi province.
This couple was supposed to return home for their mariage, but now it looks like they’ll celebrate that in a train station, along with a million other people!