Border checkpoints jammed as holiday crowds return home

Ayra Wang and Charlotte Lam

Border checkpoints were overcrowded yesterday as Hongkongers returned home on the last day of the Lunar New Year holiday.

There were long queues at noon at the Hong Kong port bus stop of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, with travelers rushing to avoid the peak night-time hours.

"The border clearance was smooth and took me about five minutes," one citizen said.

A tourist from Sichuan, who visited Hong Kong and Macau for a week, said: "There were a lot of people at the border but everything was well organized."

The bridge recorded 170,000 inbound and outbound passenger trips on Saturday after more than 150,000 passenger trips were recorded on Friday, setting a new daily record since the bridge's inauguration in 2018.

Vehicle traffic also reached a record-breaking 2,5000 trips on Saturday.

The Transport Department advised citizens and tourists to plan their trips as early as possible and travel during off-peak hours as checkpoints to the mainland and Macau have seen heavy traffic since last night.

The Immigration Department said border checkpoints in Hong Kong recorded 588,000 crossings as of 4pm yesterday.

Some 342,000 people have entered the city, of which 184,000 are Hong Kong residents.

The mainland checkpoint at Hong Kong West Kowloon station recorded over 440,000 passenger trips between January 28 and 31, Shenzhen authorities said.

Single-day total crossings on Friday reached 136,000 - the highest since the checkpoint commenced service in 2018 - with one-third being Macau or Hong Kong residents.

Meanwhile, Xinhua News Agency reported that railway passenger traffic was expected to peak yesterday with an estimated 14.5 million trips. It said that rail departments across the country added 1,501 extra trains, and 13.38 million passengers traveled by rail on Saturday, with transportation operations running smoothly and in an orderly manner.