Monday, January 28, 2008

White Wash

While some people are fretting they can't get a train ticket back home, others with tickets are wondering if they will get back in time for Spring Festival.

Snowstorms have swept across eastern, central and southern China, creating severe weather conditions not seen for 50 years.

Shanghai is covered deep in snow, and blackouts have caused the cancellation of electric trains in Hunan Province. Railway officials in Guangzhou predicted some 600,000 people would be stranded in the southern Chinese city. Many travelers are finding a spot in the train station to wait for their delayed trains or under nearby flyovers.

Meanwhile, government officials are scrambling to get coal and food to areas that need it the most.

Although the transport department tried to prepare for the holiday rush with extra trains and buses, officials may not have predicted or planned for extreme weather.

Hopefully everyone will get to their destination and back safely. But for now everyone will have to sit tight and hope for better weather, which weathermen aren't predicting in the near future.

Some people might be stranded far from home for Spring Festival, thanks to Mother Nature, or global warming.

Maybe this will be the wake-up call China needs to realize that more pollution into the atmosphere creates extreme weather situations like the one we're experiencing now.

And all the accurate weather forecasting in the world can't solve all the logistical problems China is facing, in this, the busiest time of year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

dont blame china for all the weather troubles. the rest of the world should share some of the blame as they are facing the same weather havocs. china has become the factory of the world. if not why consumer goods at wal-mart and target are so cheap? the developed countries always pick china as their scapegoat pass the blame to china. in future china needs to develop some sort of contingency plan in case of any eventuality.