The worst snowfalls in a decade caused traffic chaos across much of China yesterday as millions of people tried to head home for the Lunar New Year holiday, state media reported.
Tens of thousands of travelers were left stranded as transport in several regions across the center, east and south of the country were hit by the bad weather.
Several highways and airports, including in the central city of Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, were shut, state-run television CCTV reported.
The worst-hit provinces were Anhui in the east, central Hubei and Hunan, which supply millions of migrant workers who work in the cities and return to their families to celebrate Lunar New Year, which this year falls on Feb. 7.
Many trains were delayed in Hunan along the key railway line linking Beijing with the main southern city of Guangzhou, after snow and ice damaged overhead power lines for the electric trains, the official Xinhua news agency said.
About 40,000 passengers were stranded at various stations along the route, Xinhua said, quoting a spokesman for the Guangzhou Railway Group Corp.
He said the company had dispatched some 10,000 workers to repair the damaged power lines and sent out more than 100 diesel locomotives to pull the electric trains and transport stranded passengers.
Meanwhile, in the southwestern province of Guizhou, authorities closed several roads and 27,000 travelers were stranded waiting for their buses.
Many parts of the country have been hit by the heaviest snowfalls in a decade, which have claimed at least 21 lives so far, state media reported.
The meteorological agency on Friday warned of further snowfalls in central and western China over the weekend.
At the same time, the government called for all the services concerned to do everything possible to get fresh produce to markets and avoid shortages, which would fuel further inflation.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS