China's Ministry of Public Security issued a notice Thursday, urging local traffic departments to step up measures for handling traffic emergencies to ensure people could return home safety before Spring Festival.
A staff member leads stranded passengers at a long-distance bus station in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, on February 10, 2010. Several expressways in Shanxi were closed and the long-distance bus services in Taiyuan were suspended due to the heavy snow hitting the northern province on Tuesday night, local transport authorities said. [Xinhua] |
During the Spring Festival traffic rush, provinces like Shanxi, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong and Shaanxi were suffering from bad weather with low temperatures, rain and blizzards severely disrupting traffic.
The traffic administration bureau under the Ministry of Public Security urged its subordinate bodies in relevant provinces to take all measures necessary to help prevent fatal traffic accidents and major traffic congestion.
The notice requested relevant traffic departments to improve their real time weather pre-warning systems by coordinating with local meteorological bureaus and evaluating the effect the bad weather would have on traveling times.
Relevant departments were also required to set up more safety signs along roads and to reserve more deicing salts and equipment, so to allow for timely deicing of roads and removal of hidden dangers.
The notice asked traffic departments in different provinces to improve coordination and share information, so to ensure smooth traffic flow on the cross-province roads.