Accident on several major expressways linking Shenzhen with other cities led to heavy traffic jams Saturday, when more than 250,000 holidaymakers rushed back to work on the last day of the weeklong Spring Festival holiday.

Many buses, arriving from different cities in Guangdong, were delayed.

Minor accidents caused by a slippery road started a three-hour jam near a tollgate on Huizhou-Yantian Expressway at 7 p.m. Saturday.

"Though nobody got hurt in the minor accidents, they caused serious jams because a huge number of cars were packed on the road, waiting to pass the toll on the last day of the holiday period.

Several cars also broke down, making things worse," Chinese media quoted a tollgate employee as saying yesterday.

The jam was eight kilometers long at its peak.

Saturday afternoon also saw a serious jam on the Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway near Taihe Township, Guangzhou.

"My car moved only 1.5 kilometers in 40 minutes," complained a man who was returning from his hometown in Hunan Province.

The two-hour jam was caused by a shortage of personnel at the tollgates, which is a common scene on Guangdong expressways during holidays, the Shenzhen Economic Daily said.

Earlier on Wednesday, a 10-vehicle-pileup caused traffic at the He'ao section on the Shenzhen-Shantou Expressway to be stalled for nearly one hour, though luckily no one was injured in the accident.

The number of railway passengers also hit a historical high at the Shenzhen Railway Station on Saturday, with more than 50,000 people arriving in 26 long-distance passenger trains.

Railroad authorities estimated another travel peak next weekend, during the Lantern Festival.

The local airport also witnessed a travel rush, with around 70,000 people arriving in and departing from Shenzhen by air Saturday. Many airlines have arranged for extra flights to popular destinations like Beijing, Shanghai and Sanya. The local airport saw more than 1.2 million air passengers between Feb 1 and Friday.

Meanwhile, heavy fog closed expressways serving major northern Chinese cities including Beijing,slowing the travel rush following the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday, Xinhua said yesterday.

Authorities closed the expressways linking Beijing with Tianjin and adjacent Hebei Province, between Beijing and North China, and between Tianjin and Shanghai out of safety concerns.

Nationwide, about 50 million people a day have been crowding onto trains, buses and airplanes since Friday in a travel rush expected to continue through Tuesday.

Editor: Yan