500,000 stranded at station

Published on Monday 28 January 2008 21:17

MORE than 500,000 travellers found themselves stranded in and around a Chinese city's train station yesterday, as blizzards and ice storms created a transport crisis ahead of the country's New Year celebrations.

The travellers, most of them migrant workers, were stuck in Guangzhou after heavy snowfalls to the north cut off parts of the busy line that starts in the city and ends in Beijing.

Officials were scrambling to prevent riots and find temporary shelter in schools and convention centres for the crowd, which has swollen each day as more workers tried to return to their home towns for the Chinese New Year.

The holiday, which begins on 7 February, is as important in China as Christmas is in the West. For many migrants, it is the only chance to visit their families, and they stay away for weeks.

At Guangzhou's main station yesterday, a massive outdoor plaza was packed with people pulling luggage or lifting it over their heads. The crowd eventually spilled out on to a major road in front of the station, and it had to be blocked off to create more space for the travellers.

The workers created small camps with their suitcases, bundles and plastic bags full of snacks. They littered the ground with chicken bones, sunflower seed shells and cigarette butts as they patiently waited for their trains.

Radio announcements told people not to go to the station, which will not sell tickets again until 7 February. State-run newspapers ran headlines urging the migrants to seek ticket refunds and stay put for the holiday.

Li Moming, 48, a construction worker, spent the night on the street, enduring a bone-chilling drizzle. The train that was to take him to his home village in central Henan province – 20 hours away – was cancelled. He said his next move might be to scrap his travel plans and spend the holiday in his dormitory room at his work. "I thought about taking a bus, but the highways are shut down, too. Oh well, what can you do?" said a jovial Mr Li, dressed in a mud-splattered brown pinstripe suit for his ill-fated return journey home.

Nearby, four women who work in a digital camera factory in Foshan, just outside Guangzhou, were taking turns holding a colleague's seven-month-old daughter. The child, bundled up in a fleece jumper and knitted cap, spent the night with them on the street outside the station.

The baby's mother, who would only give her surname, Yang, said her morning train had been cancelled. She and her friends were hanging around and hoping they would get on a later train to their home town in neighbouring Jiangxi province.

"There's no reason to get upset about this or blame anyone," Ms Yang said. "It's just the weather's fault."

Other migrant workers were just as stoic – an approach to life they've learned from living on the bottom rung of China's society, with constant hardship, long delays and disappointment.