Society

Thousands stranded as heavy fog shrouds SW China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-12-28 19:54

CHENGDU - Thousands of travelers were stranded Tuesday in southwest China's Sichuan Province as heavy fog forced authorities to shut down a dozen highways and a regional airport for more than seven hours.

The Shuangliu Airport in Chengdu City, the provincial capital, was closed from 3 am to 10:20 am, delaying 110 departure and arrival flights there, said officials with the regional aviation authority.

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Six flights were canceled, officials said, and nearly ten thousand air travelers were stranded at the airport.

Heavy fog hovered over most parts of the Sichuan Basin, and east of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Tuesday, the provincial weather forecast bureau said. Half a dozen cities in the area issued travel warnings.

Eleven highways in Sichuan were closed Tuesday morning but all had reopened to traffic by 1 pm, local officials said. In the country's northern region, a cold snap is sweeping from west to east, dropping temperatures by as much as 14 degrees Celsius, the National Meteorological Center reported, adding that the freezing weather is likely to linger past New Year's Day.

In the western-most Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, snow piled up more than 50 centimeters on the ground in some parts on Tuesday.

Heavy snow had already wreaked havoc in neighboring Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In the suburban area of Liaotong City, roads and communications were cut with meter-deep snow covering the ground, officials said.

Officials with the local disaster relief agency said they had reached 4,000 residents trapped by snow by Tuesday and delivered quilts, cotton clothes, food and critical medicines to them.