Chinese new year may be a time of reunion, but once it ends so do many marriages, according to officials in Southwest China's Chongqing.

The city's civil affairs bureau processed 549 divorces on Sunday, the first working day following Spring Festival, the Chongqing Daily reported.

As fate would have it, Sunday was also Valentine's Day, though many filing for divorce claimed they were unaware of the coincidence, reported mobile news app Shangyou.

Clerks said that couples on Sunday generally appeared calmer than usual. "They probably had already decided to divorce before the holiday," an employee told the paper.

Many filing for divorce were in their 30s, officials said, adding the most common reason for divorce was "irreconcilable differences," cqnews.net reported.

Though lower than the more than 700 divorces last year, officials said divorce after the holidays is an annual phenomenon that sees an uptick of around double the average.

Chongqing Daily