Most travel for family visits, tourism on 16th day of holiday travel rush

Most Chinese passengers traveled for family visits and tourism on the 16th day of the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush on Wednesday, also the first day of the Chinese New Year.

The 40-day travel period, which began on Jan 14, is expected to witness a record 9 billion passenger trips across the country.

China’s transportation system handled over 190 million passenger trips on Wednesday, with 5.5 million trips made by rail and 180 million trips by road. A total of 204 trains were added to accommodate the surging demand.

In Wanzai County of east China’s Jiangxi Province, large crowds are expected as a fireworks show is being staged every night during the Spring Festival holiday, prompting the deployment of traffic police officers.

“We have also arranged motorcycle police to patrol nearby so that any traffic congestion can be handled in a timely manner,” said Xin Tao, a traffic police officer of Wanzai County.

In the aviation sector, 2.06 million air passenger trips were made on 17,181 flights on Wednesday.

During the holiday, south China’s Hainan Province, one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, anticipates another peak tourist season. Hainan’s three major airports are expected to handle 1.67 million passenger trips during the holiday.

On the waterways, the number of passenger trips was estimated at 650,000 on Wednesday, mainly for tourism.

Most travel for family visits, tourism on 16th day of holiday travel rush

The Palestinian death toll in Gaza since October 7, 2023 has risen to 47,417, with 111,571 others injured, Gaza-based health authorities reported in a statement on Wednesday noon.

Although the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement is being implemented as planned, the death toll in the strip continues to grow.

In the past 24 hours, two Palestinians were killed in the enclave by the Israeli military despite the ceasefire, while two others succumbed to earlier injuries and 59 bodies were recovered from rubble, according to the health authorities.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Wednesday afternoon that more than half a million displaced Palestinians had returned to the northern Gaza Strip via al-Rashid and Salah al-Din streets in the past 72 hours, according to a report from Al Jazeera.

The report said some returnees have been heading back to the center of the enclave after finding no water, food, shelter or sanitation in the north.

Since 07:00 on Monday, the Israeli army allowed people in the Gaza Strip to walk back to northern Gaza via the coastal highway, Al-Rashid Street. From 09:00 on the same day, the Israeli army allowed cars and other vehicles to return to northern Gaza via Salah al-Din Street after undergoing security checks.

Meanwhile, two senior Hamas officials on Wednesday accused Israel of slowing down aid deliveries, including items key to Gaza’s recovery such as fuel, tents, heavy machinery and other equipment.

The Hamas official warned that the delays or failures of aid deliveries will affect prisoner exchanges.

Israel hit back at the accusation, with a spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, claiming that “3,000 trucks entered Gaza” between Sunday and 1100 GMT on Wednesday in line with the first phase of the ceasefire agreement which calls for 4,200 trucks a week.

Gaza death toll rises to 47,417 as more bodies recovered from rubble