Heavy snowfall leads to severe traffic congestion on third day of Lunar New Year holiday

It's a snowy third day of the Lunar New Year holiday, with a heavy snow warning issued across many regions, causing traffic delays.

The Korea Expressway Corporation estimates that a total of 4-point-8 million vehicles are on the move today nationwide.

The estimated travel time by car from Seoul is 6 hours to Busan, 5 hours to Daegu, and a little over 3 hours to Gangneung as of 5 PM.

Traffic congestion is expected to clear by around 1AM or 2 AM on Tuesday.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety has issued heavy snow warnings for central parts of the country, Jeju, Jeollabuk-do, and Gyeongsangbuk-do provinces.

It has activated the first level of the response system, and also raised the crisis alert level for heavy snow, from "attention" to "caution."

Also, according to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, 10 flights were canceled as of 11 AM, due to heavy snow.

The air quality in the central and western regions is also poor due to the first yellow dust of the winter.