As the Spring Festival holiday is approaching an end, surging passenger flows have been witnessed across the country, as millions of people started to return to work. However, the freezing weather has added difficulties to the journey.
It's a tough journey to return to the big cities. The heavy snowfall, which began on Friday, has delayed over 20 flights, stranding thousands of passengers in northwestern China's Ningxia.
The sudden drop in temperatures piled up inches of snow on the highways with icy roads making traffic treacherous. In northern Inner Mongolia and Jilin, sleet and freezing rains slammed city streets, pressing weather authorities to issue a number of alerts.
And for travellers in the east, it's the dense fog. In Shandong, sailing has been suspended. And visibility on expressways in Jiangsu, has gone down to as low as 10 meters, forcing the closure of nearly all major roads.
Stranded returning cars have lined up for miles.
"We're heading to Wuxi, the traffic jam stretches as far as 4 kilometers, we've already waited for half an hour."
In Guangzhou, over 100,000 passengers arrived in the southern mega city on Friday. And that number is expected to nearly double on Saturday.
"The return travel peak will last until Feb. 21st. And the traffic will start to die down," said Liang Zhuotang from Guangzhou Train Station.
According to weather authorities, the cold air will bring another round of rains and snow to southern China in the next few days.
Local railway department says it has taken precautionary measures for the freezing weather.
