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INTRO
Heavy fog continued to shroud the country's north, central and eastern regions on Sunday.
China's meteorological authority issued a yellow alert.
The heavy fog has affected flights at airports in Beijing, Hebei, Hunan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Jilin, Heilongjiang and Sichuan.
With visibility reduced to around 100 meters at some airports.
The Beijing Capital International Airport said on Sunday that ten flights had been canceled and five flights delayed by more than an hour.
According to the Ministry of Transport, the fog has also disrupted traffic on some highways in Hebei, Sichuan, Hunan, Shandong and Liaoning provinces.
The Central Meteorological Center says light and moderate snow will fall in the northern part of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region on Monday, with some areas expecting heavy snow.
Meanwhile, a cold front will lower temperatures by 4 to 8 degrees Celsius in China's northern and eastern regions from Sunday to Wednesday.
The bad weather not only disrupts traffic, but also affects people's health...
According to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center, the city's air pollution has remained at dangerous levels for a third straight day on Sunday.
Beijing's municipal meteorological station even issued the city's first orange fog warning Sunday due to decreased visibility caused by the heavy smog.
Monitoring data released on Sunday showed that air quality indexes in most regions of Beijing had hit 500, the indexes' highest level.
The municipal environmental monitoring center said readings for PM2.5, or airborne particles measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, had reached more than 700 micrograms per square meter at several monitoring stations in Beijing.
Reaching as high as 993 Saturday evening.
Experts say the figures represent extremely bad pollution and residents are advised to stay indoors.
SOUNDBITE: WANG QINGENG, Environmental expert '"The pollution these days is mainly caused by the natural condition. But the emissions from factories and cars also play an important role in the air pollution process."
Experts say pollutants have gradually accumulated over the course of recent windless days, making the air quality even worse.
According to a weather report from the meteorological station, the pollution is expected to engulf Beijing until Wednesday, when wind will arrive to blow the smog away.
According to weather forecasters, a fresh cold front will sweep most parts of China from Wednesday and disperse the fog that has shrouded north,central and east China in recent days.
