Heard any fireworks being illegally set off near where you live the past few days? Probably not so many, as Nanjing’s firework lovers are now a law-abiding bunch. Problem is, this year they all went to the same place at the same time.
It’s a typical case of “Only in China”. Enormous queues of traffic, three-lanes wide, stretching for kilometre after kilometre. And why? Was it the morning rush hour? No. To return home for New Year? No. To set of fireworks? Yes.
On Chinese New Year’s Eve, 31 January, at around 20:00, Nanjing’s traffic police discovered a backlog of vehicles building up on the expressway around the Nanjing Bagua Zhou Yangtze River Bridge (formally Nanjing Number 2 Bridge) in the north of our city.
But why had they chosen this particular part of Nanjing? Because Bagua Zhou, that enormous island in the Yangtze River, remains one of the few places in the city where fireworks are still permissible.
For a number of years, it has been illegal to set off fireworks in the main urban area of Nanjing. The blanket ban encompasses the districts of Gulou, Jianye, Pukou, Qinhuai, Yuhuatai and Xuanwu, together with Jiangbei New Area. The ban also extends to the sale of fireworks and firecrackers across most of the city.
But it’s a slightly different story elsewhere. In the remaining districts of Nanjing, namely Gaochun, Jiangning, Lishui, Liuhe and Qixia, the ban on fireworks is partial.
There, by and large, that means no fireworks in any built up area. Bagua Zhou is almost 100 percent rural and that fact did not escape firework lovers in Nanjing preparing for the Year of the Tiger.
So when Nanjing’s finest are not out searching for those breaking the law with regard to setting off fireworks, they also need to be assisting those wishing to do so within the law. Literally thousands of them, in fact.
With the exit ramp off the G36 to the Bagua Zhou Service Station completely blocked, so the tailback extended southwards as far as the toll gate on the other side of the enormous bridge that spans the Yangtze. That’s a whopping 12 kilometres.
Officers responded by diverting the queuing traffic several kilometres further north along the expressway, reports the Yangtze Evening News. There, vehicles could then exit at the interchange with the recently-opened Puyi Highway.
The Nanjinger is betting that the expression, “Only in China”, has also not been lost on our local law enforcement.
