Traffic snarl-up strands nearly 2,000 vehicles on northwest China highway

A traffic jam caused by ongoing road works and severe weather has stranded nearly 2,000 vehicles on a main highway in northwest China's Gansu Province, the local government said Thursday.

A team of 100 police officers had been sent to the seriously congested Xingxing Gorge section of State Highway 312 in the remote city of Jiuquan on Gansu's border with Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, said a spokesman with the provincial public security bureau in the capital Lanzhou.

He said police would try to divert some of the vehicles to other routes, and arrange food, water and lodging for the stranded drivers and passengers.

The congested section of the highway was narrow, as construction of a new freeway was going on, he said.

The severe weather conditions, with high winds and a low temperature of minus 24 degrees Celsius, also had worsened road conditions, as most parts of the road were covered with ice.

Many stranded vehicles had run out of fuel, as the congestion, a chronic problem that began to worsen Wednesday, had made it impossible for tanker trucks to enter, the spokesman said.

State Highway 312 runs 4,967 km from Shanghai to Xinjiang.

Source: Xinhua