Life of Guangzhou - Traffic Partly Resumed but Challenges Still Ahead

Passengers at Guangzhou Railway Station

Because of the vile weather which last for days and covered 17 provinces and cities all over the country, traffic heading north from Guangdong had been paralyzed and thus hundreds of thousands of passengers had been stranded at railway stations, highways and airports. Even Premier Wen went all the long way to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, to comfort the stranded.

However, with the efforts of the authorities, the traffic has been partly resumed.

Railway: about 120,000 passengers got into the station and ready to board last night

Today Guangzhou Railway Station is getting back to normal and 98 trains will start off, with some 200,000 passengers on their journey. It is estimated that all the 600,000 passengers stranded in Guangzhou will all be able to get on their way back home in 3 days. However, the Hunan section of Beijing-Guangzhou railway is still badly blocked.

Highway: drivers and passengers heading north are advised to take their way back.

Currently about 3,900 vehicles and 12,000 passengers are still trapped at the Shaoguan section of the Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway. Vehicles on the expressway towards south were at last allowed to move forward at 8pm last night; when the way toward north is open is still uncertain.

What’s worse, after a slight rise in temperature yesterday morning, another cold air hit the place again, causing the temperature dropping down to -5℃ and heavy rains. The deiced road is re-frozen within 5 minutes. Furthermore, being trapped in the coldness for days, a lot of vehicles are broken, which makes the situation harder to deal with.

The good news is that the shuttles towards Pearl River Delta region, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces are working normally. According to Tianhe Bus Station, no shuttles are found to be delayed. The travel peak will be on 3 February.

Airway: passengers excitedly line up at the checkpoints

Since more and more airports, including Wuhan (Hebei province), Nanjing (Jiangsu province) and Nanchang (Jiangxi province), announce to re-open, stranded travelers eagerly rush to Guangzhou airport. Some 50,000 passengers are expected to take off from Guangzhou Baiyun Airport.

But the 350 passengers heading for Changde, Hunan province, are still stranded in Guangzhou; both airports in Jiujiang and Anqing of Jiangxi province are closed. In addition, Changsha Airport of Hunan province is not open to flights from other cities yet.

For flight enquiry, passengers can call the hotlines of the airports or resort to the airlines as well:

China Southern Airlines: 95539

East Star Airlines:95151

Shenzhen Airlines:95080

Hainan Airlines:950178

Air China:4008100999

China Eastern Airlines:95808

Weather forecast: cold and heavily rainy in the next 3 days in Guangzhou

As attacked by cold air frequently, Guangzhou will be fairly cold and damp for another week and there will be heavy rains in the next 3 days. It is still hard to say whether we can see an improvement during the Spring Festival.

In other parts of Guangdong, the low temperature will continue with most areas rainy.

As to some parts of the country, in the next 3 days, it will be heavily snowy in parts of north Hunan province and Jiangxi province, middle and north of Zhejiang province and south Jiangsu and Anhui; some may be hit by snowstorms. It will be still cold and rainy in middle and south of Guizhou and south Hunan province.

(By Chen Wenli)