Amid widespread concern, China started Chunyun, or Spring Festival transportation on Friday, five days ahead of schedule.

"Safety is the paramount issue in our work for Chunyun this year," said Wang Yongping, spokesman with the Ministry of Railways.

China's Chunyun, hailed as the "greatest human migration on the planet," is an annually hot topic. It became hotter this year after the death of a college student who was shoved off the platform at a railway station in east China's Anhui Province and killed by a train.

The tragedy occurred at about 4:55 PM on Sunday when Leng Jing, a junior student from the Anhui Normal University in east China, was waiting with more than 600 other passengers at Wuhu railway station.

Passengers flooded to the train, No.5082, before it fully stopped, when someone screamed "there is a person under the train".

"I squatted, only to find a long-haired girl in red lying on the rails," recalled a witness surnamed Ma.

Wu Tisheng, vice Party secretary with the Wuhu railway section blamed snow on Sunday. "As road traffic was crippled by snow, the number of passengers taking trains surged dramatically, more than 100 of whom even managed to reach the waiting platform without tickets," he said.

Normally, passengers were allowed to mount the waiting platform only after the train pulled in and fully stopped.

"But this would cause delay to the train," Wu said, noting that it was a common practice at many railway stations of allowing passengers in before their train arrived.

The incident soon appeared on many websites and in newspapers, renewing people's worry over safety issues.

Traditionally an occasion for family reunion, Spring Festivals always saw a majority of the country's 150 million migrant workers joining college students in homeward odysseys.

"This is the first Chunyun after the adjustment of holidays and the golden week of May Day holiday was shortened, so it is not strange to see more passengers this year," said a Cantonese netizen anonymously on the portal website of sina.com, "we definitely need more long holidays to deluge passenger flows."

Transportation networks in many areas have experienced a record crush of travelers this year.

It is estimated that Beijing will have 30.09 million passengers in the coming Chunyun, up seven percent from last year's figures. Trains are set to carry about 21.03 million people, up six percent, and the number of people using Capital International Airport is estimated to surge 10 percent to 6.1 million. Long-distance coaches are predicted to carry 2.96 million people, 4.9 percent more than last year.

Northwestern traffic hub Xi'an has been sending a record of 100,000 people every day since Monday, about 20,000 more than the number in previous years.

In Jinan, capital of eastern Shandong Province, the number of passengers during this year's Chunyun shall hit a new high of 5.1 million people.

Guangzhou is even asking for help from the Railways Ministry for more trains, as estimated passenger numbers in the southern province are set for the first time to surpass 20 million.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is set for its second tough test: Jia Nailin, vice head of the Lhasa Railway Station, estimated that the station will deal with around 100,000 passengers during Chunyun, up 9.8 percent.

While railway stations across China are adding temporary trains to ease the pressure, different measures are taken to ensure the safety of travelers.

Northeast Heilongjiang province ordered tightened inspection on overloading, and the numbers of tickets sold for different sections of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway are strictly controlled.

In Qingdao of Shandong, where the Olympic sailing events are to take place, the more than 200 staff with the railway station have gone through training and maneuvers.

"Such training was conducted each year," said Wu Xiaojun with the railway station who had worked as drivers for ten years.

Learning from its bloody lesson, Wuhu railway station plans to add 20 armed policemen and several volunteers to keep order on the platform, according to Wu.

However, addressing the safety issue is not the responsibility of just the railway departments, noted Wang Kaiyu, sociology professor with the Anhui Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.

"Flows of migrant workers and students are two major burdens for Chunyun," he said, "but people tend to pay more attention to the former."

Wang suggests adjusting the time of college holidays so as to have the two flows avoiding each other.

Besides, he believes that colleges should enhance safety education among students. "After all, students are young and lack social experience," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2008)