Crowds have thronged Hong Kong’s various border crossings as hundreds of thousands of residents looking for good food and affordable holiday activities queued up to leave the city on the first day of the Easter weekend.
As of 10am, over 254,000 people had left Hong Kong, with around 241,000 being local residents. To cope with crowd control measures at the Lo Wu checkpoint, some East Rail line trains departing from Admiralty earlier terminated at Tai Po Market instead of border terminuses Lo Wu or Lok Ma Chau.
At the West Kowloon high-speed railway station, a crowd of thousands filled the departure gates at 9.30am, occupying over half of the hall fenced off for the winding queue.
The Post observed that the waiting area where passengers prepared to board their trains was even more crowded. The area remained jam-packed at 10.50am, with the departure hall crowd dropping to several hundred.
There were travellers across age groups, 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 70s, 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.
