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Traffic queued back almost 10 miles due to a double incident near the Dartford Crossing.
A broken down lorry forced two lanes to be closed just after junction 1B for Dartford on the approach to the tunnels shortly after 4pm.
In the resulting queues, a lorry and a car collided leading to major delays on the anti-clockwise carriageway.
Queues were heading back almost as far as junction 4 for Orpington and traffic was extremely heavy on the A2 at the Darenth Interchange.
Lanes two and three were blocked due to the crash just before junction 1B but reopened by 5pm.
The broken down lorry continued to cause problems heading towards the tunnels and the two outside lanes were still blocked until 6.50pm.
National Highways advised drivers to allow at least an extra 30 minutes to get through the jam.
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