SEOUL – On the first day of South Korea's Chuseok holiday, heavy traffic that clogged major expressways earlier in the day began to ease by late Saturday, according to the country’s expressway operator.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the Korea Expressway Corp. reported a decrease in travel times as of 6:00 p.m., with the estimated journey from Seoul to Busan, a major port city in the southeast, now taking about 4 hours and 30 minutes. Travel to Daegu, located 235 kilometers southeast of Seoul, was reduced to approximately 3 hours and 30 minutes. Gwangju, situated 237 kilometers southwest of Seoul, also showed similar travel times. Meanwhile, the central city of Daejeon, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul, could be reached in just 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Chuseok, a significant autumn harvest festival in Korea, is a time when many travel to their hometowns for family reunions and ancestral rituals. The festival, which falls on Tuesday this year, has prompted a five-day holiday period from Saturday to Wednesday. The expressway authority noted that traffic departing Seoul was expected to clear completely by around 8:00 p.m. Saturday.

Additionally, traffic volumes were high, with around 420,000 vehicles moving from the greater Seoul area to other provinces and another 430,000 vehicles traveling in the opposite direction, just on Saturday alone.