CHENNAI: As the quarterly holidays for students and the Ayudha Puja long weekend came to a close, vehicles flooded the Tiruchy-Chennai National Highway on Sunday.

With many returning to the city, vehicular movement came to a grinding halt on the NH, pushing commuters to extreme difficulty. A massive traffic jam from Perungalathur to Tambaram on Sunday was a result of residents beginning their return to the city from Saturday evening.

Traffic being choc-a-bloc after long weekends and holidays is a regular ordeal for commuters and residents, for those who remain in the city and those who return to the city. Both quarterly holidays and Ayudha Puja, culminating this week, did not help the situation.

The situation has been severely exacerbated by slow-moving, ongoing expansion work on the Irumbuliyur bridge near Perungalathur. This bottleneck has caused vehicles to crawl inch by inch, turning a typically short journey into an ordeal. Reports indicate that vehicles travelling from southern districts towards Chennai are taking anywhere from one and a half to two hours to cover the mere 4-km stretch between Perungalathur and Tambaram.

Many returning travellers had anticipated potential Monday morning delays and left their hometowns early to avoid getting caught in traffic and being late for work and school. However, their plans were thwarted as the severe congestion set in from Saturday evening itself, leaving countless motorists stranded and frustrated on the highway.