Snow hits as festival begins(2)

Two-hundred and forty additional trains were put into operation on Thursday, the most since the travel season started.

Rain in Shanghai turned to sleet and snow on Thursday afternoon. The city's Meteorological Bureau said the snow was caused by the mixture of cold and warm air, and that most of the snowfall was expected from Thursday night to Friday.

More than 30,000 square meters of underground parking space at Shanghai Hong-qiao Railway Station and Shanghai Railway Station can be used as emergency waiting room for up to 40,000 passengers if trains are delayed because of the weather, officials said.

"The snow should accumulate with some ice on the road," said Zhu Jiehua, an officer of the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau.

However, highways connecting Shanghai to nearby provinces and cities are still open to those hurrying home.

"We won't close the highway unless the icy road situation gets worse," said Gao Junjie, an official with Shanghai's Songjiang district road administration, adding that temperatures were still above freezing in Shanghai on Thursday.

Gao said the highway didn't close during last few year's Spring Festival peak travel season.

Yang Hong, a 53-year-old homemaker, said she bought for her family three Friday-night train tickets from Shanghai to Nanjing to have their reunion dinner, even though her original plan was to drive home.

"You've got to play it by ear. If the snow is heavy and the way home is closed, I'll take the train, but if that's not the situation, we'll drive home and return the tickets," she said.

Driving is not a good choice for most southern parts of the country, with snow and freezing rain there since Wednesday evening.

On Wednesday, one person died in rear-end collisions involving more than 20 vehicles on a highway from Chengdu to Nanchong in Sichuan province. The collisions were blamed on heavy fog that followed the sudden temperature drop.

The freezing cold on Thursday pushed up prices of the country's fruits, vegetables and meat by about 2.6 percent over the day before, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.