The Spring Festival travel peak in Karamay, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, started on Jan 24 as migrant workers in Karamay began to take trains and buses back home to their families for Lunar New Year's reunions.

Nearly 1,500 passengers took the "North Xinjiang Star" train from Karamay to Urumqi that day, more than 80 percent of whom were migrant workers and students.

The Karamay Intern-city Bus Station was also crowded with passengers and by 19:40 that day, the station had served approximately 1,600 passengers, which surprisingly was a little less than the previous year.

The travel rush will last for 40 days and end on March 3. Up to 120,000 trips are estimated to be made during this period.

Chinese tradition holds that people should spend Spring Festival with their families, which is said by many to be the largest annual human migration in the world.

Edited by Owen Fishwick