China's massive holiday migration begins

The world's largest annual migration of people begins in China on Sunday with millions of travellers boarding public transport to journey across the vast country for the Lunar New Year celebrations. The government estimates the number of passenger trips on trains, planes, boats and buses will reach 3.2 billion during the holiday, also known as the Spring Festival, up 9.1 percent from last year. The public security ministry urged drivers to be wary of "harsh weather" conditions, with fog, rain and snow forecast in parts of the country during the festival travel season, which ends on February 16, Xinhua news agency said. Millions were left stranded during the 2008 Spring Festival after the most ferocious winter weather in at least five decades froze key sections of the transport network just as vast numbers of people were heading home. Although the week-long holiday officially begins on January 23, demand for tickets is high many weeks in advance, with migrant workers desperate to return to their home villages and towns queuing for hours, even days, to buy tickets. A new online system designed to make it easier for people to buy train tickets for the holiday this year has been overwhelmed by huge demand from millions of travellers across the country. Many travellers flooded social networking sites to vent their anger at spending hours trying to access the new system, only to find that tickets allocated for that day had already sold out. Officials have pledged to improve the website's design and increase the network bandwidth to handle the demand, as well as refund money to out-of-pocket travellers within 15 days, previous state media reports said.