AFP, Beijing :
Schools have been suspended and emergency workers put on standby in China as the country braces for historically cold weather, including 30-year lows in places, the government and state media said Thursday.
At 1pm Thursday, it was already a biting -28 Celsius (-18 Fahrenheit) in Yakeshi in Inner Mongolia, with Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province in the northeast at -19 degrees Celsius and Changchun in neighbouring Jilin at -17 degrees degrees Celsius.
“I’ve put on all my clothing, but I still don’t feel warm!” state broadcaster CCTV showed a pedestrian saying in Altai, in the western region of Xinjiang, where temperatures reached -26 degrees Celsius. “The wind is very strong — when it blows on my face it hurts horribly.”
The National Meteorological Center predicted temperatures would drop up to 10 degrees degrees Celsius across much of the country over the next four days, according to a statement on its website. It will be below freezing in over 90 percent of the world’s most populous country, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Beijing is forecast to see a low of -17 degrees Celsius on Saturday, but some of the most unusual weather patterns were projected for further south. Zhejiang province in the east declared a yellow alert for the cold — the second-highest on a four-level scale.
Photos of supermarkets in the provincial capital Hangzhou posted online showed mad scrambles of shoppers vying for fresh produce, cooking oil and bread, in one case leave nothing but a lone cucumber behind on the shelves.
Schools have been suspended and emergency workers put on standby in China as the country braces for historically cold weather, including 30-year lows in places, the government and state media said Thursday.
At 1pm Thursday, it was already a biting -28 Celsius (-18 Fahrenheit) in Yakeshi in Inner Mongolia, with Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province in the northeast at -19 degrees Celsius and Changchun in neighbouring Jilin at -17 degrees degrees Celsius.
“I’ve put on all my clothing, but I still don’t feel warm!” state broadcaster CCTV showed a pedestrian saying in Altai, in the western region of Xinjiang, where temperatures reached -26 degrees Celsius. “The wind is very strong — when it blows on my face it hurts horribly.”
The National Meteorological Center predicted temperatures would drop up to 10 degrees degrees Celsius across much of the country over the next four days, according to a statement on its website. It will be below freezing in over 90 percent of the world’s most populous country, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Beijing is forecast to see a low of -17 degrees Celsius on Saturday, but some of the most unusual weather patterns were projected for further south. Zhejiang province in the east declared a yellow alert for the cold — the second-highest on a four-level scale.
Photos of supermarkets in the provincial capital Hangzhou posted online showed mad scrambles of shoppers vying for fresh produce, cooking oil and bread, in one case leave nothing but a lone cucumber behind on the shelves.
