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Fog causes transport delays, closures

By Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-26 07:52

A police officer directs traffic amid the fog in Chaoyang district yesterday. [Mirror Evening News]

The heaviest fog this winter hit Beijing at rush hour yesterday morning, causing delays and confusion on the city's roads and runways.

Fog from neighboring cities in Hebei province and Tianjin drifted into Beijing at around 8 am yesterday morning, a weather forecaster surnamed Guo from the Beijing Meteorological Bureau told METRO yesterday.

"The fog moved from east to west, but only the east and southeast parts of the city were badly influenced," she said, adding it should disperse today.

The Beijing Capital International Airport's (BCIA) news center said that by 3 pm yesterday, 40 percent of its inbound and outbound flights were delayed.

Visibility at the airport however did improve from 50 m before 9 am to as much as 500 m by 10 am.

"A total of 280 flights out of 677 were delayed but we didn't receive any cancellations from airlines," a spokesman surnamed Zhang at BCIA said yesterday.

Zhang said they offered hot water and timely information to passengers.

On the roads, the fog affected drivers like Pei Shengbin who drove from Lishuiqiao in Changping district to Yangzhen in Shunyi district.

He said the journey took an extra 20 minutes because he had to reduce his speed from 80 to 50 km p h to match the slow traffic.

"Visibility was down to 30 m by around 9 am," he said.

The Beijing section of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu expressway near the South Fifth Ring Road closed between 8 am and 10 am yesterday due to the fog, an employee from the expressway's hotline said yesterday.

However, he refused to reveal the number of cars that had been trapped at the entrance of the expressway.

Pan Xiaona, a middle school teacher who lives outside the East Fourth Ring Road, told METRO she was surprised by the sudden arrival of the fog yesterday morning. She said her normal walk to work at 9 am yesterday was marred by visibility of only 5 to 6 m.

"I was very nervous crossing the main road because I could barely see the cars," she said.

"There are no traffic lights on the crossing so I had to depend on my hearing," she added.

Zhai Xiaohui, a spokeswoman for the Beijing municipal environmental protection bureau, said the fog wouldn't damage the city's environment directly, but it does absorb pollutants if there is no wind.