Hundreds of millions of Chinese travelers began to scramble for train tickets on Tuesday for the mass migration during the Spring Festival, with tickets selling out rapidly and many trying desperately to get a seat.
Train tickets for the second day before lunar New Year eve, which falls on January 27, were quickly snapped up.
The annual travel rush, or chunyun, lasts from January 13 to February 21, with around 356 million trips expected, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The number of trips is forecast to increase by 9.7 percent from the previous year, China Railway Corporation said.
"I started to buy my ticket for a ride to Nanchang at 8 o'clock this morning using two phones. But I was asked to fill in the verification code for about 15 minutes, and later the screen showed that I had to wait in line. But after a while, it said the tickets had been sold out," Tu San, a 37-year-old woman from East China's Jiangxi Province who works in Beijing, told Global Times.
Tu said she booked a flight instead, which costs five times more than a train ticket.
She is one of many Chinese trying to make their way home for the special occasion, with many others using ticket purchasing services, which automatically order tickets for a fee.
