3 hours wait to enter Bahrain on payday weekend

A traffic jam at the King Fahd Causeway Bridge connecting Saudi Arabia and Bahrain stretched to an unprecedented distance on Thursday and Friday, but passport and customs teams in the Eastern Province provided no explanation.

Sources told Al-Hayat newspaper that the jam started at 11 a.m. on Thursday and gradually increased until the early hours of the night. Completing travelers’ procedures took more than three hours.

“Many travelers were unable to return because they got trapped by the large number of vehicles and were thus forced to wait for long hours,” Al-Hayat’s sources added. “The King Fahd Causeway Bridge customs mobilized all their staff when the jam started last Thursday, but their measures failed in the face of the extreme two-day traffic congestion.”

The sources speculated that three reasons were behind this incident: The private sector’s payday coincided with the weekend; the first phase of the largest shopping mall in Bahrain was recently launched; and Bahrain’s customs started using a new system for completing travelers’ procedures.

Twitter users shared photos and video footage of travelers and the traffic congestion that spanned over several kilometers.

Source: arabnews