A tidal wave of passengers has hit China's eastern railways during the holiday week of the Spring Festival, Chinese Lunar New Year that fell on February 7 this year.

On Saturday, the Shanghai Railway Bureau in charge of the region recorded nearly 136,000 passenger departures via the Shanghai Railway Station and Shanghai Southern Railway Station.

Meanwhile, more than 20,000 passengers took bus for family gathering or sightseeing tours to cities in Shanghai's neighboring provinces Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang.

The city's bus station ran more than 700 buses Saturday, including 100 additional temporary ones.

Tickets from Shanghai to northwestern Urumqi, southern Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and southeastern Fuzhou, were all sold out but failed to meet the rising demand.

The bureau has added special trains for students and migrant laborers to ensure their safe travel.

The current wave of railway passenger is expected to continue to around February 15.

Early this week, millions of Chinese had to abandon their trips home because of the worst winter in at least 50 years.

In Shanghai, about 120,000 migrant workers chose not to go home for the Spring Festival Eve that fell on February 6. "Now, some of them can go home since the traffic has resumed thanks to the good weather in the weekend," a bureau official said.

(Xinhua News Agency February 10, 2008)