Traffic can get bad sometimes and can be a bit of an inconvenience but its hard to imagine it getting as bad as a 125-mile traffic jam. Well that's exactly what happened in Russia this past weekend.
Heavy snow and the lack of cleanup left cars backed up for 125 miles on a main highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Snow began falling on Friday and dumped three feet on the cities. Road servicing units put less than half of their force into action on the busy M-10highway, which left drivers at a standstill.
Roughly 4,000 trucks were on the road for more than 48 hours and drivers were stuck in below zero temperatures.
"It was extremely cold and those who didn't have much petrol left were going to warm up in other people's cars," Valeriya Osipova, a driver heading south to Moscow, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.Some complained on social media sites that cafes and other businesses were taking advantage of the situation by hiking up prices and several gas stations ran out of fuel.
The Emergencies Ministry set up pop-up tents along the road and provided food, medical assistance and warming centers to stranded drivers.
"(Emergencies Minister Vladmir Puchkov) is making sure that all necessary measures are being taken and that all vital personnel in afflicted regions have everything they need," a ministry spokesman said, according to CNN.
However many said the help wasn't enough.
"We are hungry and mad. My friend just called, he's been stuck for three days. Someone from the Emergencies Ministry brought him a see-through piece of bread with a wafer of sausage on it What a joke!," truck driver, Vladimer Lebedev said, according to the Telegraph.
The traffic did show some signs of improvement by Sunday evening as traffic decreased to 34 miles and was shrinking at a rate of three-fourths of a miles per hour. However traffic is still far from normal.Officials blame the ineffective state response to the storm as a main cause of the backup.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
