BEIJING - While the heavy fog in northern China recedes over Monday night, southern parts of the country are likely to see thicker fog on Tuesday, according to the national meteorological department.

"A higher-than-usual temperature has caused the heavy fog, and after Wednesday a dramatic temperature drop will hit most parts of the country and end the fog," Lin Jian, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said on Monday.

Lin urged people to drive slowly and the local transport bureaus to close the highways when necessary.

NMC warned on Monday morning that Jilin, Gansu, Hebei, Shaanxi, Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian and Yunnan provinces, as well as the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Chongqing, will experience heavy fog.

The heavy fog in northern, central and eastern China last weekend crippled traffic on expressways and delayed flights across the country.

The range of visibility was reduced to 200 meters in some of the affected areas and less than 10 meters in the Hexi district, Tianjin, on Monday morning, causing 13 highways in the municipality to be closed.

About 72 flights were delayed or canceled on Monday at the Tianjin Binhai International Airport, and about 3,400 passengers were stranded, China National Radio reported on Monday.

The heavy fog also caused a series of traffic accidents in Anhui, Shandong and Shaanxi provinces.

In Anhui, at least two people were killed and five injured in three car accidents on Monday because of the heavy fog, including a rear-end collision involving 41 vehicles on a highway from Ningbo to Luoyang.

And a rear-end collision involving 12 vehicles occurred in Shandong on the highway from Beijing to Shanghai, where the range of visibility was less than 10 meters on Sunday morning. No casualties have been reported so far.

Heavy fog also caused severe traffic jams in the central, eastern and southern parts of the country.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

China Daily

(China Daily 11/29/2011 page4)