QQ used to reunite owners with lost items

Shanghai rail authorities are turning to online instant-messaging and microblogging in an added effort to see that more people get their lost belongings back after local train stations collected some 1,000 items left behind by passengers during the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush that ended last week. 

Photos of valuable goods have been placed on the railway authority's official microblog while other lost and found department workers are getting creative with methods to reunite owners with laptops. 

The goal this year is to return more than the usual some 10 percent of the lost goods, said Zhang Zhimin, who has worked as an officer for the Shanghai Railway Station's lost and found department for the past 23 years. 

Zhang's son inspired his latest technique: he essentially rifles through the computers looking for an installed QQ program and uses the instant-messaging service to contact the owner. Under this system, two computers have been successfully returned this week so far, he said Wednesday. 

Belongings left behind are collected by workers and then kept at the city's three major train stations, where a public notice about the items are displayed for 90 days. 

The unclaimed items are then stored at the respective station for at least another 90 days, according to the station's lost and found department.

Officer Zhang further suggested that passengers looking for missing items call the railway's lost and found hot line at 5123-4370 for more information.