Snow strands travelers at start of Chinese New Year getaway

According to the airport’s website, 67 flights were cancelled Sunday and a trickle of flights were delayed or cancelled Monday because of the bad weather.

Videos and images posted to social media showed officials struggling to control vast crowds outside the central railway station in Guangzhou, where there were significant delays.

Chen said the company had also reduced the arrival/dispatch cross-over time for each train.

The municipal public security bureau has sent 6,200 policemen to help maintain order at the railway station.

High-speed trains at the station had not been affected, according to the railway company. A large number of the travelers are migrant workers traveling from factories where they work in the region around Guangzhou to their homes in rural central China.

Millions of Chinese will travel by train, bus, vehicle and plane over Spring Festival, or the Lunar New Year, which falls on February 8 this year.

The phenomenon puts huge pressure on China’s transport infrastructure.

“The pattern leading to China’s disruptive snow is similar to that sometimes occurring with southern snow and ice events in the USA”, said weather.com meteorologist Jonathan Erdman.

An estimated 175,000 passengers were scheduled to travel by train in Guangzhou on Tuesday.

The station said it expected 176,000 passengers a day as more than 2.9 billion trips are expected to be made across the country.

Much of China was struck by a cold snap late last month that broke decades-old records, with snow falling in some areas for the first time in years.

Pictures of the mad rush and busy queues have been circulating on Chinese media, showing a sea of people waiting outside patiently to get into the station and onto a train.