Continuous heavy snow in northern China has created havoc killing eight people, stranding thousands of motorists and hitting more than 600 flights.
For the last three days, Beijing and northern Chinese provinces of Shanxi, Liaoning and Hebei are having heavy snowstorms leading to five people being killed in separate cave-ins in a market and an industrial area in Shanxi, Xinhua reported.
The snowfall also caused a collapse of a school cafeteria in Hebei province, killing three students and injuring 28 others.
The tragedy at the school forced the authorities to close all educational institutions in the provincial capital of Shijizhuang for three days due to the heaviest snow in the last 54 years, the agency said quoting local officials.
"A cafeteria of the Longfeng elementary school collapsed due to heavy accumulation of snow killing three children and wounding 28 others," the agency said.
Officials said all school buildings were being checked for safety. Xinhua said that upto 30,000 motorists had been stranded on highways in and around Beijing and outlying provinces.
The heavy snow also wreaked havoc on flights with more than 600 departures and arrivals postponed for over eight hours at the Beijing international airport.
In Shanxi province, the famous caves of China's terracotta warriors had to be shut down for two days due to the snowfall on the road approaches leading to it.
Officials said that two snowstorms over the last 10 days in Beijing had been caused by man-made snowfall, sparking outrage among the public, but the extent of weather manipulation is not clear.
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