Dense fog delayed traffic in the central part of the country on Monday, the last day of the three-day Lunar New Year holiday, but road conditions were generally easing nationwide, the Korea Expressway Corporation said.
Several car crashes occurred on foggy highways, but no deaths have been reported, the state authorities said.
Warm weather caused dense fog around the central city of Daejeon and part of the Gyeongbu highways linking Busan, the country's southeast, and Seoul. One person was injured when a freight truck collided with a passenger car, which led to a pileup of three cars, on a highway in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province.
Another pileup of four passenger cars occurred on a highway near Daejeon, followed by a collision of four cars in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province, the police said.
"Dense fog caused collisions in the morning. In the afternoon, accidents are occurring in congested areas with an increasing amount of cars, but there have not been any serious injuries because cars weren't moving at high speeds," a police officer said.
Except the foggy areas, traffic was flowing almost the same as during normal weekends, the expressway corporation said. A 450-km trip by car from Busan to Seoul took about 6 hours, half an hour more than usual, and a distance of 410 km from Mokpo to Seoul took about 5 hours and 20 minutes, it said.
About 205,000 cars returned to Seoul as of 3 p.m. during the day, and 160,000 more were expected by midnight, it said.
At Seoul Station, up to 130,000 people were expected to return from rural areas via train during the day. All tickets for trains to Seoul during the day and early Tuesday were sold out.
All airplanes operated on schedule. The airport authorities on the southern island of Jeju said a total of 122 domestic planes were to take off during the day.
Seol, the Lunar New Year holiday which fell on Sunday this year, is one of the two biggest traditional holidays in Korea, along with Chuseok, which is the Korean harvest festival. Families gather to pay their respects to ancestors and visit relatives and friends.
This year's Lunar New Year is shorter than usual since it overlaps with the weekend. The shorter holiday means more people are using the roads at the same time, since most people have to go to work on Tuesday. Traffic was also very heavy on Friday night as people headed for their hometowns.
Seoul, Feb. 19 (Yonhap News)
Some highways congested on last day of Lunar New Year holiday |
