China's railway network transported 622 million tonnes of cargo in the first two months of the year, an increase of 2 percent year on year, the country's railway operator said Wednesday.
China's railway industry has been optimizing transport services and improve the efficiency of delivering daily necessities, which has supported economic activity and ensured people a warm winter, according to China State Railway Group Co., Ltd (China Railway).
During this period, railways handled 301 million tonnes of coal, including 232 million tonnes of coal for power generation, helping thermal power plants meet peak demand, China Railway revealed.
Green channels for grain and spring farming materials have been opened after the Spring Festival holiday, and the delivery of grain, and fertilizer and pesticide in February increased by 33.2 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively.
In the January-February period, China's railway transported 129 million tonnes of containers, up 14.6 percent year on year.
China's railway cargo transport volume up in Jan-Feb
The three astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou-23 spaceship have entered the country's Tiangong space station and met with their astronaut colleagues early Monday morning, as they now begin an in-orbit crew handover.
Mission commander Zhu Yangzhu and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying successfully entered the station's core module Tianhe after the spaceship made a fast automated rendezvous and docked with the Tianhe module at 02:45 (Beijing Time) on Monday.
The three Shenzhou-21 crew members opened the hatch at 05:13 (Beijing Time) and greeted the new arrivals, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
The six astronauts then took group pictures for the eighth in-orbit get-together in China's aerospace history.
Notably, one of the Shenzhou-23 crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.
The Shenzhou-23 spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 23:08 (Beijing Time) on Sunday.
Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.
Shenzhou-23 astronauts enter Tiangong space station, meet Shenzhou-21 crew
