The heavy fog over Beijing Sunday is predicted to hang over for
another day, threatening the city's traffic which has turned to
busy following the end of the week-long Spring Festival
holiday.
The fog is expected to clear off by the daytime on Tuesday and
the municipal traffic administrations are warned of closing the
expressway in time and raising traffic safety awareness, the
municipal observatory said in a latest weather forecast at 5 PM on
Sunday.
The visibility in the downtown area of Beijing is less than 500
meters by Sunday afternoon and all the buses have been required to
run at the speed of less than 20 kilometers, according to the
Beijing municipal public transportation group.
In addition, trains running on the two above-ground railway
lines, which runs across the eastern and northern part of the city,
were also ordered to lower down their speed in fog.
The group has also arranged extra buses and vehicle repairers
for possible accident.
The fog first appeared at 6:00 AM in the southern part of
Beijing and spread to Tianjin and some regions in Hebei Province,
also in north China.
The traffic control department closed the Jingjintang Expressway
linking Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, Jinhu Expressway linking
Tianjin and Shanghai, Jingshen Expressway linking Beijing and
Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province in northwest China, on
Sunday morning for safety reasons.
Some highways in outskirt area of the two cities were also
closed, affecting intercity passenger bus operations as large
numbers of holiday makers returned to their homes or
workplaces.
"The closed expressways and highways have been reopened later in
the day and the traffic so far is OK. But we may close them again
according to the weather conditions," said an official with the
Beijing traffic management bureau.
The civil aviation service at local airports were not affected
by the fog and all flights at Beijing's Capital International
Airport and Tianjin's Binhai International Airport are in operation
as scheduled.
(Xinhua News Agency February 26, 2007)
