China is known for many things, such as its martial arts or cuisine, but now it can also add another thing on its list: traffic jams. On Tuesday, videos and pictures surfaced of a traffic jam in China so bad that it makes traffic jams seen elsewhere in the world look like an utter joke.
The congestion occurred as China's "Golden Week," a seven-day holiday celebrating the country's national day, came to an end Wednesday, reported the Huffington Post. Hoping to get home on time and resume work, millions of Chinese citizens flocked onto a single expressway. However, all of them had the same idea at the same time.
As more and more commuters started to make their way home along the G4 Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau (Jinggang'ao) expressway, the 1,400 mile long expressway which runs between Beijing and Shenzhen, slowly became packed, making the scene look like a 50-lane parking lot, reported City Lab.
Traffic jam on G4 Beijing–Hong Kong–Macau Expressway as National Day holidays draw to end, Tue pic.twitter.com/jpR0VibYKG
— People's Daily,China (@PDChina) October 6, 2015
The congestion was reportedly caused by a combination of foggy weather, as well as a new checkpoint, which reduced the amount of available lanes from about 50 to 20, according to The Telegraph.
At its peak, an estimated 750 million people - half of the country's population - were involved in the massive traffic jam.
China is no stranger to these types of traffic jams. In 2010, due to an assortment of factors such as road construction and broken down cars, a gridlock spanning more than 74 miles formed along a major Beijing road, backing up traffic for nine days.
