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)