Despite heavy fog that disrupted highway traffic in north China,
the country still reported a flow of 25.76 million highway
passengers on Wednesday, the fourth day of China's lunar New Year
holiday season.
Yesterday's passenger flow was 4.35 million more than Tuesday
and 20.3 percent higher than last year's same day, according to the
Ministry of Communications.
Communications authorities put 650,000 buses in service to meet
the rising passenger flow as many people would visit their
relatives and friends during the seven days of the Spring Festival holiday, which began on
February 18 this year.
Migrant workers who left home for cities also contributed to the
rising passenger flow, according to communications authorities.
China's highways are expected to transport 2 billion passengers
during the Spring Festival period that began on February 3 and will
end on March 14, up 5 percent year on year, according to the
Ministry of Communications.
From February 18 to February 21, the first four days of the
week-long Spring Festival holiday, 276 million visited friends or
went out for sight-seeing by ship, up 5.3 percent year-on-year.
Sections of seven Beijing and 10 Tianjin highways were closed
after thick fog smothered north China on Wednesday morning.
The highway from Beijing to Shenyang, capital of northeast
China's Liaoning Province, and six other highways
passing through Beijing were closed after the visibility in some
areas was as low as 50 meters.
The Tianjin municipal observatory reported visibility to be as
low as 30 meters on some road sections.
As of 6:00 PM, the Beijing Capital International Airport had
canceled 190 flights due to the heavy fog, including 91 arrival
flights and 99 departure flights.
(Xinhua News Agency February 22, 2007)
