Heavy snow, strong winds disrupt road traffic in Xinjiang

A strong cold wave has brought heavy snowfall and strong winds to the Altay region of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region since Thursday night, disrupting traffic in multiple areas.

On the Altay-Hemu highway, a 209.45-kilometer-long highway linking Altay City and Hemu Village, natural snowfall reached up to 70 centimeters in some sections. Local road maintenance workers deployed snowplows overnight to clear accumulated snow.

During their snow clearing, the workers also found that multiple avalanches had happened along the route.

"[The avalanche] stretches about 30 meters, with a maximum thickness of 2.5 to three meters, blocking the road. It occurred while traffic control measures were already in place, and no civilian vehicles or tourists were present at that time," said Hu Changhong, deputy director of Altay Maintenance Station.

In Altay's Habahe County, blowing snow and icy conditions affected a section of National Highway 219. One vehicle slid off the road and got stranded. Traffic police responded quickly, clearing snow with shovels and using a patrol car to tow the vehicle to safety.

Separately, on Friday noon, blowing snow reduced visibility to less than 20 meters in Dahongliuxia Township of Barkol Kazakh Autonomous County.

A sedan carrying five people got trapped in the snow. Police officers arrived with rescue equipment, cleared ice from around the vehicle and attached a towing rope. After about 30 minutes of rescue efforts, the vehicle and all passengers were moved to a safe area.

Heavy snow, strong winds disrupt road traffic in Xinjiang

A total of 297.665 million inter-regional passenger trips nationwide were recorded on Saturday, the second day of the five-day May Day holiday this year, transport authorities said on Sunday.

The figure represents a 1.7 percent increase from the same day last year and a 11.8 percent decline from Friday, the first day of the break.

Railway passenger trips rose 1.2 percent from a year ago to 19.781 million, 20.4 percent down the previous day and up 1.2 percent year on year.

A total of 273.86 million road trips were reported on the day, an increase of 1.8 percent year on year, and 11.2 percent less from the previous day.

Among them, commercial passenger trips reached 39.40 million, an increase of 14.9 percent year on year, while non-commercial passenger trips reached 234.46 million, roughly the same as the previous year.

The waterways handled 2.096 million trips, marking a 1.3 percent decline year on year.

The civil aviation passenger trips stood at 1.928 million, down 11 percent from the previous year.

China's postal sector collected 474 million parcels, up 6.3 percent from the previous day, and delivered 493 million parcels, down 4.6 percent from the previous day.

The May Day holiday, running from May 1 to 5, is typically one of the busiest travel periods of the year. During this time, millions of Chinese passengers hit the road to visit family or go traveling.

Holiday Day 2 sees 297.665 mln passenger trips