CHINA:China slowly trickled back to work after an eventful week-long National Day holiday which saw a series of computer viruses, record numbers of air passengers and a sharp drop in the number of traffic accidents.
The National Day holiday marks the anniversary of the 1949 revolution which brought the ruling Communist Party to power and is one of three "golden week" holidays during the year. Many Chinese head from the cities to their home towns for the festival, or increasingly take a vacation in one of the country's tourist hotspots.
As the road network improves, many more people are choosing to drive to their destinations. China's roads are the world's deadliest, claiming 90,000 lives on the roads last year. In the week to the end of Sunday, 1,171 people were killed, a drop of 43 per cent from last year. Only one of the 3,635 traffic incidents recorded by Sunday evening - 50 per cent fewer than last year - killed more than 10 people, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
More than 150 million Chinese were estimated to be travelling during the holiday, while a record number flew to their destinations. Rising incomes means more people can afford to fly on China's cheap and reliable air transport network.
On September 30th, 540,000 people took to the skies, according to China's aviation regulator. All told, passenger numbers were up by a quarter on a year earlier, with 3.75 million people flying, although the number of flights rose by just 6 per cent in the period.
As people opted for air travel rather than opt for perennially packed trains, aircraft were fuller, with nearly three-quarters of all seats occupied to destinations such as Beijing and Shanghai, and tourist areas like the southern island of Hainan.
Chinese air regulators are concerned by the massive increase in the number flying and say they may have to intervene to slow down the market.
The air traffic figures came despite Typhoon Krosa, which hit the south of China hard forcing the evacuation of 1.4 million people and affecting many airports. It was subsequently downgraded to a tropical storm as it lost strength.
Meanwhile, those who chose to spend the National Day holiday surfing the internet had to deal with three different types of computer viruses that infected nearly one million Chinese computers,.
In one day alone, 118,000 computers crashed, Xinhua reported.
China has 162 million internet users and the problem of internet addiction is growing - last month a man who was gaming online for three days straight dropped dead from exhaustion.
