Deep freeze brings travel chaos to north China; 1400 people trapped on train

The snow that blanketed the region at the weekend has ended in Beijing but the national weather centre said the mercury dipped Tuesday to -15.6 degrees Celsius (four Fahrenheit) -- the coldest temperature in more than two decades.

The freezing weather was expected to continue until Thursday for the Chinese capital, nearby Tianjin and Inner Mongolia, with temperatures forecast to fall as low as minus 32 degrees Celsius, it said on its website.

On the outskirts of Beijing, truck drivers were forced to sleep in their vehicles for two nights on a highway when snow made the road impassible, causing a 20-kilometre (12-mile) back-up, the Beijing News reported.

(...) The heavy snow and freezing temperatures have led to hundreds of flight cancellations and delays in Beijing, shuttered schools on Monday and snarled traffic throughout the capital.

In Inner Mongolia, a train hit a wall of snow more than two metres (6.5 feet) high on Sunday, leaving 1,400 travellers in the dark and without heating overnight before they could be evacuated, the China Daily reported Tuesday.

(...) Nearly 2,000 people including police and local farmers were mobilised to dig out the train, which was heading from the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province to Baotou in Inner Mongolia, the report said.