Transportation officials announced that a 40-day peak travel flow for spring excursion and the annual graveyard sweeping started yesterday.

The ShanghaiRailways Station will handle some 5.7 million passengers during the period,5 percent more that last year,officials predicted.

The station will put 17 more trains into operation during the period.On weekends,trains between city and Suzhou and Wuxi and other cities in neighboring provinces will be available every ten minutes,officials said.

The number of passengers was estimated to hit record high of more than 120,000 each day on March 30 and March 31.

The annual Qing Ming Festival will fall on April 5 this year.City people will travel to gravesites in the local countryside and in neighboring provinces to pay respect to their ancestors.

Most of those to leave the city will travel to Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.Suzhou in Jiangsu will receive the largest number of visitors as more than 400,000 of local people's ancestors are buried in eight cemeteries there.

Shanghainese were buried in Suzhou generally up until the 1980s.Sine 1990s,more cemeteries have been established in the city's rural areas.

In recent years,Qing Ming has also been regarded as an ideal time for families to go for a walk in the country in spring when the grass has just turned green.

( eastday.com March 12, 2002)