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More than 5.2 million Chinese and foreigners visited Beijing's Tian'anmen Square during China's weeklong National Day vacation, a new visitor record for the world's largest city square.
Beijing police sources said on Saturday the number was the highest in the past few decades, beating out the 4.9 million visitors in 2005 and the 3.9 million in 2004.
The fact that Mid-Autumn Day fell during the weeklong vacation was one explanation for the surge in visitors, the source said.
Chinese people traditionally pay a visit to the Square during the National Day holiday.
The 440,000-square-meter square - about the size of 63 football fields - is usually decorated with plants and lights for this special occasion.
The joy and celebration spelled hard work for some. An official in charge of Tian'anmen Square sanitation work said that the visitors had left a huge amount of garbage.
Four hundred sanitation workers from the municipal sanitation department worked around the clock to clean up more than 220 tons of garbage, including plastic bags, newspapers, food and drink containers and camera film boxes.
Some of the rubbish was left by people who stay overnight at the Square for the national flag raising ceremony.
"On Oct. 1 alone, our sanitation workers swept up 39.8 tons of garbage," the official said, "and they collected and moved another 39.5 tons the next day."
Apart from Tian'anmen Square, major parks in Beijing received 2.66 million visitors from Oct.1 to 7, 60,000 people more than the same period last year.
(Xinhua News Agency October 8, 2006)
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