Winter Chaos

We finally have a reprieve after 5 days of snow and ice in Shanghai. Instead of having machines clear the roads of ice and snow, there are people out with shovels and brooms doing the job themselves. As such, traffic is more horrendous than usual. Actually, we are pretty lucky here. Most of western/southern China have been hit with so much snow and ice that all of the transportation systems (i.e., buses, trains and planes) were shut down. The extreme weather couldn't have come at a worse time. Next week in Chinese New Year (February 7th) and everyone is leaving to return to their home town. And for most people, Chinese New Year is usually the only time that people go home to visit their families -- parents, spouses, children --- so everyone has been desperately scrambling to find any available transportation. In Guangzhou alone, there were 500,000 people stranded at the train station. Many of whom have been sleeping at the station for days. In another province, there was a bus full of people that was stranded in the snow 2 days without any food, water or heat. The Chinese government is asking people to refrain from traveling this New Year but it doesn't appear to have any effect. In addition, there is a prediction of food shortages to certain areas of China due to the inability of food shipments getting through. The Chinese government has dispatched about 500,000 soldiers to help keep the peace and also to shovel snow and ice in an effort to clear up the roads. The Chinese premier has publicly apologized for transportation shut downs resulting from the weather.

Luckily, the reprieve in the weather enabled some of the public transportation systems to resume their operations and many people were able to depart to the intended destinations to celebrate the new year.