China's railway expected to handle 13.2 mln passengers on 10th day of Spring Festival travel rush

China's railway is expected to handle 13.2 million passengers nationwide on Thursday, the 10th of this year's 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, as the railway passenger traffic has been running at a high level for several days.

The railway transported 13.32 million passengers on Wednesday, the ninth day of the travel rush.

By 20:00 Wednesday, the country's railway ticketing platform 12306 had sold a total of 271 million tickets for the Spring Festival travel period which runs from Jan 14 to Feb 22.

To ensure smooth travel during the Spring Festival, local railway departments are adding trains to meet the surging demand.

China Railway Xi'an Bureau Group in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, is expected to handle 455,000 passengers on Thursday, with the local railway authorities planning to add 98 extra trains, including 12 overnight high-speed trains to the metropolises of Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

China Railway Nanning Bureau Group in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is set to run 690 passenger trains on Thursday, including an additional of 101 bullet trains.

Qingdao railway station in east China's Shandong Province will operate passenger trains to Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, for the first time.

The Spring Festival travel rush, known as Chunyun, is the largest annual human migration in the world as tens of millions of Chinese people return to their hometowns to celebrate the Lunar New Year with their families.

The Spring Festival falls on Jan 29 this year, ushering in the Year of the Snake.

The U.S. dollar increased in late trading on Friday.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, gained 0.18 percent to 98.599 at 3:00 p.m. (2000 GMT).

In late New York trading, the euro decreased to 1.1724 dollars from 1.1725 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound added to 1.3391 dollars from 1.3386 dollars in the previous session.

The U.S. dollar bought 157.51 Japanese yen, higher than 155.52 Japanese yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar advanced to 0.7946 Swiss francs from 0.7940 Swiss francs, and it climbed to 1.3786 Canadian dollars from 1.3781 Canadian dollars. The U.S. dollar was down to 9.2556 Swedish kronor from 9.2846 Swedish kronor.