JUST A week after the last 100km snarl-up, more than 10,000 trucks mainly carrying coal are stuck in a 120km traffic jam in the northeastern region of Inner Mongolia, the latest dramatic blockage on the country’s roads.
State television said the highway heading towards Beijing and the neighbouring province of Hebei was now more like a car park. The jam started forming on Tuesday after traffic restrictions began being enforced in Hebei, where the last traffic jam was focused.
The main cause of the traffic jam is the transportation of coal, which provides nearly 70 per cent of China’s energy needs. Many of the snarled up vehicles are lorries bringing coal from the northeast and they are also blocking entrances to the motorways in the area. This is the time of year when much of the coal that is burned in China’s power plants is shunted around the country, which is the world’s biggest producer and consumer of coal. Some of the coal is transported by rail but most of it is brought by road.
There are plenty of railways and roads being built to cope with the demands of China’s economic boom, but builders are struggling to keep up with the pace.
Traffic authorities are still recovering from an epic traffic jam on the Beijing-Tibet highway which started on August 14th and lasted about 10 days.
It was only resolved when they forced truckers to make a 300km detour. Some drivers were stuck for five days, forcing them to sleep underneath their trucks in the late summer heat. They complained they were being ripped off by locals charging exorbitant prices for instant noodles and bottled water.
Authorities say the traffic in Hebei province was easing somewhat, offering some possible respite to those trapped in Inner Mongolia.
As well as traditional seasonal demand, coal is cheap at the moment, prompting a spike in demand as power stations try to build up reserves of coal. Snowstorms two years ago blocked many roads around the country and exposed how low reserves often were at power plants; there were outages in places where the power station had only enough coal to keep going for two days.