Fourteen roads in Guangdong Province saw frighteningly dense traffic as it was the first day of the Labour Day holiday and the day on which toll-free roads were piloted, Guangzhou Daily reports.

On Guangshen Expressway, drivers took 4 hours to go 20 kilometres and the situation was similar on 13 other expressways during the peak hours of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. These included Guangqing, Huihe and Fokai expressways.

With miserable weather and poor visibility, accidents were inevitable. At 9 a.m., a 7-vehicle pile-up on Guangshen expressway led to a road closure near Chang’an Station that led to a tailback towards Guangzhou that stretched to 8 kilometres.

Around 5 p.m., a collision involving 3 vehicles on Beihuan Road led to a road closure from the junction of Guanghua Road to that of Guangqing Road. This led to traffic jams going all the way back to Baiyun tunnel.

A total of 913,000 people left Guangzhou that day. However, the longest traffic jam in history is still the 12-day traffic jam that clogged the Beijing-Tibet Expressway in August 2010.