Hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers swamp border crossings as they leave city on first day of Easter holiday
- Official figures show at least 589,654 residents left city across all border points as of 4pm on Friday
- Long queues seen at city land-based checkpoints, including Lo Wu crossing and West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus
More than 681,000 people flooded out of Hong Kong across its border checkpoints on Friday as they left the city in droves on the first day of the Easter holiday, more than seven times the number of visitors that trickled into the city from mainland China.
Immigration Department figures showed that at least 681,412 Hong Kong residents had left the city across all border points by 9pm on Friday and inbound traffic stood at 93,219.
The outbound figure surpassed the 2018 pre-pandemic figure of 593,383 on the first day of the holiday.
But the number of inbound visitors trailed behind the full-day count recorded on the same day that year, which stood at 148,324.
Long queues were seen at various land checkpoints throughout the day, including the Lo Wu crossing and the West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus.
The MTR Corporation was forced to deploy extra staff to stations along the East Rail line in the morning to cope with the surge in passenger numbers and the company warned travellers to expect delays.
