Guangzhou railway station on Friday received an estimated 240,000 passengers, mostly migrant workers. Sources said that the station had received over 100,000 people Wednesday and another 153,000 people Thursday.

Guangzhou airport Friday handled a total of 610 passenger flights, receiving and shipping out nearly 80,000 people. Most arriving passengers were returning local tourists and migrant workers.

A traditional occasion for family reunions, Spring Festival has always been the peak period for China's passenger transportation, which usually lasts 30 to 40 days.

The railway, road and air transportation facilities of Guangzhou had already stood a severe test in the days before this year's Spring Festival on Feb. 1, as tens of thousands of migrant workers in Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong and Macao and has a booming private sector luring millions of outside laborers, foughtfor a place on homebound trains, buses and planes. Many affluent residents also chose to enjoy their vacation by traveling around the country for sightseeing.

Local officials noted that this year many migrant workers had scheduled their returns much earlier than in the previous years.

Just one day after the Spring Festival, migrant workers from other provinces had started arriving in Guangzhou, many of them even coming by air. From Feb. 1 to 6, passenger arrivals at Guangzhou railway station had risen by 14 percent over the same period of 2002.

The officials believed that some migrant workers had returned earlier for fear their jobs would be taken by someone else during their absence, while others were newcomers hoping to be the "earlybirds" and find a job easily.

However, the officials said that all these migrant workers obviously lacked knowledge about the provincial government's latest policies.

In order to relieve the pressure on transportation around the Spring Festival, the Guangdong provincial government had earlier banned all local units and enterprises from hiring any new migrantworkers within one month after the Spring Festival, they explained.

(People's Daily February 8, 2003 )