Fog strands over 10,000 passengers at airport

Heavy fog engulfs Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport in Sichuan province on Monday. Lu Junming/for www.ming7.cn

Dense fog grounded 151 flights and stranded nearly 10,000 passengers at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport in Sichuan province on Monday.

The disruption followed the chaos caused by fog at the airport on Sunday when more than 180 flights were delayed, 35 canceled and more than 15,000 passengers affected.

The fog reduced visibility at the airport to 50 meters from about 5 am, forcing it to close for about six and a half hours until 11:25 am when an Air China flight to Changdu, Tibet, took off, said Lu Junming, an information officer at the aiport.

"Twenty-seven minutes later, a flight from Beijing landed at Chengdu and the airport resumed normal operation," he said

Lu said the airport will cooperate with airlines to mobilize more aircraft to transport passengers and will operate throughout the night to clear the backlog.

Under the arrangements, the airport was due to handle 593 flights on Monday.

"Most delayed flights are expected to have left and arrived at the airport by about 8 pm but it might be about 5 am on Tuesday when the backlog is cleared," Lu said.