The traffic jam on Kanetsu Highway connecting Tokyo and Niigata prefectures began Thursday morning after a car was trapped in deep snow in the middle of the highway, stopping traffic, according to the Nippon Expressway Company (NEXCO), the highway operator country.
The central and northern regions of the country had been hit by heavy snowfall that morning, which disrupted traffic and caused some communities to lose power.
Road traffic was stopped for the rest of the day. The peak time Thursday night, the traffic jam extended to 15 kilometers (9.3 miles), NEXCO told CNN. The jam continued until Friday; the lanes coming from Tokyo were eventually finished, but the lanes going to the capital still stopped. At noon on Friday, there were still 1,000 cars trapped.
Photos of the highway show long rows of motionless cars, many with piles of snow on and around vehicles, stranded in the middle of snow-covered fields.
Some limited relief occurred Thursday before when emergency officers handed out rice balls, bread, cookies, sweet snacks and 600 bottles of water, in addition to thousands of gallons of petrol and diesel.
But it wasn’t enough, with drivers trapped for many more hours in the cold.
A 30-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were taken from hospital to the hospital on Thursday for respiratory problems and nausea, according to Niigata’s head of crisis management, Tsuyoshi Watanabe. So far no fatal or serious incidents have been reported.
Watanabe added that the prefecture has requested the deployment of the Japan Self-Defense Forces to provide water, food, gas and portable toilets for people who are still trapped on Friday and to help clear the snow.
NEXCO also warns drivers, through social media and by radio, to beware of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning while waiting in the car for hours and hours.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has met with ministers to discuss heavy snowfall and called on local officials to work together to restore services and help those affected, NHK reported.