Traffic misery for millions of Chinese as Lunar New Year travellers return to work
Highways close, traffic snarls and flights are delayed as Lunar New Year travellers return
Millions of travellers returning home for work and school yesterday were hampered by long traffic jams, highway closures and flight delays as the week-long national Lunar New Year holiday came to an end.
Highways into Beijing were heavily congested as the number of travellers peaked for the return trip of the hectic holiday travel season known as chunyun, the largest annual human migration in the world.
Thousands were stuck in afternoon traffic on one section of the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway in central Henan province, where vehicles were caught for up to four hours in queues several kilometres long, state broadcaster CCTV reported. On one highway in Shanxi province, an accident in a tunnel caused a traffic jam that stretched more than 10km.
Snowfalls in northeastern provinces, such as Heilongjiang and Liaoning , caused temporary airport closures.
Provincial-level expressways in Heilongjiang were closed due to ice on the roads, prompting travellers to flock to railway stations instead, the China Meteorological Administration reported on its website.