Wednesday, January 30, 2008

China: Snow Creates Travel Chaos

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese travelers are stranded as severe winter weather swoops down on China. Everyone's trying to get home to see their families for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

Apparently the chaos is so bad that the government had called out nearly half a million troops for assistance. Well, that puts things into perspective a bit, I suppose: I mean, things have been dreadful at Heathrow or Chicago-O'Hare, but nobody's ever had to call out the troops to keep order or shovel snow!

Anyway, here is a sobering photo gallery of the poor travelers.

Still, the absolute best photo yet from this tale of travel woe is here. I mean, really -- go look!

2 comments:

Margaret Larkin said...

I saw that in China when it wasn't snowing! People got in and out of buses via windows--such desperation!

Mad Minerva said...

Good grief! I've never seen *that* in Taiwan. Sure, people are jostling a bit, trying to pile into the train/bus/tram -- but it's nothing worse than you see in New York City.

The head-first diving through windows...That's nuts! Maybe they can make a new Olympic event of it!