Mass migration home starts for Chinese New Year

BEIJING (Reuters) - Millions of Chinese migrant workers have begun jamming train stations to buy tickets home for the Lunar New Year break, but millions of others will be relying on scalpers to get away for the year's most important holiday.

Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is the biggest of two "Golden Week" holidays, giving migrant workers their only chance of the year of returning to their home provinces with gifts for the family, the biggest movement of humanity in the world.

Last year, that movement was disrupted by the worst winter weather in the south in decades, and this year the holiday has little meaning for millions who have lost their jobs as factories have shut down in the once-booming south and gone home early.

The holiday begins on January 26. The second Golden Week of the year celebrates National Day on Oct 1.

More than 80 percent of those still planning to make the trip thought scalpers or "connections" were their best bet to secure a ticket, state television said.

Just over 15 percent preferred braving the sea of shoving travelers at sales windows for the travel period that officially started Sunday and lasts four weeks, with 188 million passengers expected to take to trains.

Crowding on to overbooked trains to stand for cramped rides lasting days in some cases is an annual ritual.

"The ride is very long, but I will only be able to get a seat (rather than a sleeper)," said Cao Yueyun, a 22-year-old student waiting at Beijing Station for a ticket to his hometown in rural Hunan province.

"Because of last year's snowstorm I haven't been home for two years."

Authorities, as usual, have announced a crackdown on ticket scalpers and braced for potential harsh weather after holiday snowstorms last year stranded millions in big manufacturing provinces like Guangdong.

Rising unemployment after the widespread factory closures in recent months could raise the danger of unrest if such a freeze-up recurs.

Beijing station, one of three in the city, has added 35 daily departures and arrivals each to its normal 105 to accommodate the surge, a station worker said.

Chinese airlines also expect to carry 12 percent more passengers this holiday compared with 2008, or some 24.2 million people, an aviation official said in a webcast on government website www.gov.cn.

(Reporting by Beijing newsroom and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)