Guangzhou: Heavy snows strand more than 100,000 people at southern China train station

'There are too many people and it is too crowded'

Passengers wait to enter a railway station after trains were delayed due to bad weather in southern China in Guangzhou (Reuters)

More than 100,000 people have been stranded at a train station in southern China after heavy snows disrupted public transport in the run-up to Chinese New Year.

The holiday seasons sees hundreds of millions of migrant workers make long journeys home to celebrate with their families – but it has coincided with some of the worst winter weather conditions across eastern Asia for a generation.

Videos and images posted to social media showed officials struggling to control vast crowds outside the central railway station in Guangzhou, where there were significant delays.

About 176,000 passengers had reportedly been due to pass through the station on Monday alone, and numbers began to pile up after a rare bout of freezing snow saw at least 23 trains delayed.

According to the Xinhua news agency, emergency measures were put in place to try and control passengers outside the station and “avoid the dangers of overcrowding”.

State broadcasters said more than 50,000 were stranded, but other local and international media put the number above 100,000 at its peak.

“There are too many people and it is too crowded,” one stranded passenger, who was not named, told CCTV.

Xinhua has said the country is bracing for record levels of passengers this year, as people brave the travel chaos lasting about 40 days around the New Year itself, which falls this year on 8 February.