Society

Chinese drivers stuck in record traffic jam

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-08-25 08:20

Chinese authorities are battling to end a 96-kilometre tailback stretching from Beijing to the northern region of Inner Mongolia.

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The jam on the main north-south motorway into Beijing has lasted 10 days and has been blamed on the construction of a road that will not be finished until next month. Lorries joining the back of queue in Inner Mongolia were travelling at about 3.2kpd (kilometres per day). The jam has spawned a thriving local economy with opportunists and some extortionists selling fruit, nuts, water and instant noodles to the marooned drivers.

China, which this year overtook the USA as the largest car market in the world, is undergoing a huge expansion of its national road system.