If the wait for the train during the New Year holiday was excruciating for hundreds and thousands of Chinese, the journey proved even more of an ordeal.
Like what happened to Edward Wang, an English tacher who set out to his hometown of Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province from the southern city of Guangzhou.
Wang, 25, rode the rails as China's worst blizzards and ice storms in five decades caused havoc during the nation's busiest travel period, the Chinese New Year. At least 60 people have died, thousands of vehicles were stranded on highways, rail travel was severely disrupted, and damage has been estimated at $7.5 billion.
State-run television and newspapers have painted an inspiring picture of people coping with the disaster -- soldiers chipping ice off highways, and train conductors using snow to clean toilets on idled trains. Passengers were shown smiling as they looked out of train windows.
But Wang, an English teacher tells a different tale.
He said the crisis brought out the worst in China's system What began as a 36-hour train trip lasted nearly twice that long.
First, the food aboard the train ran out, then the water.
Wang described fighting among drunken passengers and staff armed with knives, fears of being robbed by those desperate for food, and breathing air so foul that some people became dizzy.
Wang said train staff reverted to the communist habit of blocking bad news, refusing to say why the train was stalled on the tracks for up to 10 hours at a time.
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