BEIJING - Meteorological authorities on Sunday issued a blue-coded alert for heavy fog across the country's central and eastern regions, predicting low visibility in the regions from Sunday night to Monday morning.

Mist will envelop Shaanxi Province in the northwest, most parts of northern China, regions in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, the Huaihe River and the Yangtze River, as well as the northern part of the southern China region and the eastern part of southwest China, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said.

Visibility will drop to less than 1 km, or even below 500 meters, in the southern and eastern part of Hebei Province, the western part of Shandong Province, the southern part of Anhui Province, and the southwestern part of Hunan Province, according to the NMC's forecast.

The NMC reminded residents living in those regions to take precautions and reduce their outdoor activities due to the low air quality brought by the fog.

Airports, expressways and ferry wharfs should adopt necessary measures to ensure traffic safety, the NMC said.

At least 30 people have been killed and dozens of others injured in pile-up accidents on mist-shrouded expressways in eastern Zhejiang province and northern Tianjin municipality in the past two days.

A new round of cold weather will slash the northern parts of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region starting Sunday, bringing moderate rains, sleet and high winds, the NMC said.

Temperatures in the central and eastern regions of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and other areas in northern China will drop as much as 10 degrees Celsius, with some regions seeing strong winds in the coming three days, according to the NMC.