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HARBIN, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- A border port in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province has started a hovercraft operation to cross the river border as melting ice on the river is too dangerous for shipping and not solid enough for buses.
A total of 15 hovercraft are being used on the Heilong River to ferry passengers between Heihe Port and Blagoveshchensk, capital of the Amur region in the Russian Far East, said Yang Dechen, deputy head of the port's entry-exit inspection and quarantine bureau.
A one-way trip takes five minutes, with a capacity of 60 passengers per trip on the largest hovercraft.
The operation is expected to last for two months until the river water is frozen enough for "ice buses."
An important port in Heilongjiang, Heihe is 100 meters away from Blagoveshchensk. According to the port website, a total of 300,000 people crossed the border in each direction in the first half year of 2016, up 8.93 percent year on year.
