AKIPRESS.COM - Poor weather left at least 100,000 travellers stranded in a train station in southern China on Monday as they battled to return home ahead of Chinese New Year celebrations next week.

Vast crowds of migrant workers surged into Guangzhou’s main railway station hoping to make it back to their family homes ahead of Lunar New Year festivities on 8 February that will usher in the Year of the Monkey.

Local media said the situation was so severe that authorities declared a “level two emergency” and deployed more than 2,600 security guards to watch over the throng.

Guangzhou police chief Xie Xiaodan and Chen Rugui, a senior Communist party leader, were also dispatched to the scene in a bid to avert rioting and stampedes, reports The Guardian.