Crowds have thronged Hong Kong’s border crossings as hundreds of thousands of residents seeking good food and affordable activities queued up to leave the city on the first day of the Easter holiday.
More than 254,000 people had left the city as of 10am on Friday, about 241,000 of whom were residents. To cope with crowd control measures at the Lo Wu checkpoint, some East Rail line trains departing from Admiralty terminated at the earlier Tai Po Market stop instead of border terminuses Lo Wu or Lok Ma Chau.
Thousands of travellers flocked to the West Kowloon station departure gates for high-speed rail services at 9.30am, with the winding queue taking up more than half of the hall.
The Post observed that the waiting area where passengers prepared to board their trains was even more crowded. The area remained packed at 10.50am, with the departure hall crowd dropping to several hundred.
The crowd was made up of travellers of all ages, but many were middle-aged people and retirees joining package tours to various destinations in Guangdong province and beyond.
Wong Yuk-lin, a retiree in her seventies, told the Post she was going on a six-day tour to Chongqing with her friends.
“The timing is right [for this trip]. It’s a public holiday, so it’s easier to come up with dates among friends,” she said.
