Weather puts China's rail system to test
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China Daily, January 16, 2012
"Though the weather will not be as bad as during the Spring Festival holiday in 2008 and 2010, the disruption to transport can't be ignored," he said.
![A deadly high-speed train crash occured in July, killing at least 40 passengers. [File photo]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20120116/00016c8b5de0107dc27212.jpg "A deadly high-speed train crash occured in July, killing at least 40 passengers. [File photo]") |
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A deadly high-speed train crash occured in July, killing 40 passengers. |
The railway network and highways were crippled during the 2008 Spring Festival by the worst weather in at least five decades and millions were left stranded.
Hu Yadong, deputy minister of railways, said earlier that the railway system, which is expected to handle 235 million trips in the 40 days of the travel peak, or 5.88 million a day, has learned its lesson.
The measures include preparing 500 diesel locomotives on trunk lines, in case weather disrupts the power supply for electric and bullet trains, and putting 1,000 electricity generators on emergency standby.
Traffic surged over the weekend, as the railway system estimated there would be 6 million passenger trips on Sunday, with more to come during the following six days.
Heavy fog disrupted nationwide public transportation on Sunday, grounding flights in some cities.
On Sunday morning, more than 1,500 passengers were stranded at Hedong Airport in Yinchuan of Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region due to low visibility. Police also closed five highways in the area.
Also because of fog, China Southern Airlines said 44 flights at Haikou airport were affected by Sunday noon, and an unidentified number of flights to Shenzhou were canceled.
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