The nation's expressways, railways and airports were jammed Saturday with people heading back to their hometowns or overseas for the start of the traditional Bon holiday week.
Outbound expressways were jammed with traffic, with lines of vehicles stretching 54 km westward on the Meishin Expressway in Aichi Prefecture before noon. Cars crawled at a snail's pace on the Joban Expressway in a traffic jam that at one point stretched back 33 km following a pileup.
Domestic airlines reported full capacity on most flights leaving Tokyo's Haneda airport.