The Hankou Railway Station is usually one of the busiest transit hubs in the city of Wuhan and China at large. Around China's annual New Year holiday season, it can host up to 170,000 passengers per day. Many of them are migrant workers taking a rare break and traveling to reunite with their families as part of the Chinese tradition. But on January 23, 2020, just two days before the festival, their homeward journey came to an unexpected halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. CGTN's Zhao Yunfei was at the railway station the moment it was ordered to close.