India, Sept. 13 -- A nine-kilometre tailback at Palaspe left thousands of devotees from the Mumbai region returning to their ancestral Konkan villages for Ganeshotsav stranded for hours as the annual festive exodus overwhelmed the routes through Panvel and Raigad. The jam, which affected commuters from Friday evening into Saturday is likely to continue on Sunday.

The impact was felt along the Sion-Panvel and JNPT corridors, Kharpada, Palaspe, Indapur and Mangaon, with slow movement also reported near Khopoli on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. The worst disruption was at Palaspe Phata, just outside Panvel, where the Mumbai-Pune corridor, JNPT routes and Mumbai-Goa Highway (NH-66) converge before traffic heads towards Konkan.

The trouble bega...