Heavy Fog Continues in China

Heavy fog continued to cloak large areas of China on the weekend, causing accidents, closing highways and delaying flights.

Since Wednesday, the northern Hebei Province had experienced its heaviest fog so far this winter when visibility was reduced to 500 meters and sometimes even 100 meters or less.

The mist caused about a dozen road accidents in the province and left three injured, two described as serious.

Some highways in the province had also been closed. In addition, half of more than 120 coaches that started from Shijiazhuang were stopped, including all of those to Beijing, Tianjin, Qinhuangdao and Tangshan.

At the Shijiazhuang airport in Hebei's capital, 18 flights were delayed. Four were forced to land in nearby airports while 10 others were cancelled.

Shuangliu airport in Chengdu, capital of the southwest Sichuan Province, was closed for eight hours before noon on Saturday as the fog reduced visibility to only 10 meters.

A total of 412 flights entering or leaving the airport were delayed for as long as four hours on Saturday, leaving about 12,000 passengers stranded.

In the eastern Zhejiang Province, a cargo ship loaded with nearly a 1,000 tons of sand and stone bumped into a bridge pillar on the Feiyun River in Wenzhou amid heavy fog on Saturday morning. All five crew members were rescued.

China's central government issued a circular on Saturday calling for local governments and related organizations to cooperate in the work of weather monitoring and to take effective measures to prevent casualties and financial loss.

Source: Xinhuanet