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Beijing Snowstorm Paralyzes The Chinese Capital: Travel Affected

by Yuliya Talmazan | January 4, 2010 at 09:47 am

3288 views | 28 Recommendations | 3 comments

Heavy snowstorms have paralyzed Chinese capital Beijing over the weekend, stranding travelers, shutting down major roads and keeping school children at home. It is estimated over 80% of air flights have either been canceled or delayed as snowstorm hit the Beijing Airport. But, Beijing snowstorm was not much of a natural disaster by North American standards -- 20 cm of snow and 14 degrees below zero. However, for the Chinese capital that is used to higher season temperatures and snowless winters, the snow posed some challenges. Beijing has not seen a snow storm as big since 1951.

As many as 300,000 people and 200 snow-clearing trucks have been mobilized to clean the streets of Beijing.

It is expected the snow will keep on piling up within the next 12 hours and the temperatures will drop even further.

Here are some Tweets from people who got trapped in the snowstorm:

AntiqueMarketCA: I arrived in Beijing to the worst snow storm in ten years! Hope to get out tommorow to shop for more great treasures . Harry

MisterClaRence: heavy snow storm in Beijing caused my flight to be 8 hours delayed from Zhengzhou. back in BJ finaly!

torrylike: should've brought my snowboardin gears to beijing, i could do some serious backcountry here

ChinaNewsFax: Big snowstorm paralyzed the traffic and the airport in Beijing today.

tomvandeweghe: enjoying a snowstorm on the streets of Beijing : no traffic, no people :-)

The snow took many in South Korea by surprise too. Seoul reported the heaviest snowfall in modern Korean history with 26 cm of snow on Monday. The Japanese island of Hokkaido was affected by the snowstorms too.

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starkc

at 19:45 on January 4th, 2010

Coming from a tropical country, the snow certainly is a pretty sight to behold, although after a while, pristine white snow turned into Chocolate slush!

starkc has contributed a photo to this story.

linglingfa

at 19:13 on January 6th, 2010

It's been said that is the biggest snow in 51 years

anarkissed

at 07:32 on January 8th, 2010

This much snow at once would mess up any city, even up here where snow is normal. Perhaps some russian cities would take it in stride but I think it would slow them down too. Worse yet, it's probably warm snow and very heavy and slippery.