China's Ministry of Railways launched 711 temporary trains on Feb. 4 to enable 4.34 million passengers to return to work after a week-long Spring Festival holiday with their families.

The ministry reported that passenger-flow had exceeded 4 million for the three consecutive days leading up to the end of the Spring Festival, which finished Saturday.

It is predicted that the number of passengers will continue to top 4 million until Feb. 12, the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar calendar, after which the New Year period will end.

On Feb. 2 and 3, the ministry launched 586 and 688 temporary trains.

This year's Spring Festival travel rush, also known as "Chun Yun" or "Spring Transportation", began on Jan. 14. During the 40-day peak season from Jan. 14 to Feb. 22, a record number of over 2 billion passengers, including migrant workers, students and tourists, will travel between cities by train for family reunion and tourism purposes.

The average daily number of rail travelers was 3.528 million people during the days before the Spring Festival on Jan. 29, 347,000 more than in the previous year, the ministry said.

(Xinhua News Agency February 5, 2006)