BEIJING - Mopeds are back in Hanoi, cars once more clog Karachi's streets and gridlock has returned to Beijing's ring roads as lockdowns caused by the coronavirus ease, breaking the temporary respite from traffic.
Asia's megacities are notoriously traffic-choked, inflicting dizzying pollution and enervating daily delays on their residents.
Yet for a few weeks pedestrians ruled the roads as lockdowns, curfews and self-isolation prodded by fears over the Covid-19 pandemic, did the once unthinkable and kept hundreds of millions of people indoors.
For a while, the entrance to Yangon's golden Sule pagoda emerged from behind the swirl of buses and banged-up cars.
Bangkok's air quality momentarily turned "clean" as the vehicles squeezing along its main thoroughfares vanished, while in Beijing overpasses were emptied after China banned movement as it grappled with the spread of the virus.(FA)