HEFEI - "I have to stay here the whole night and it has caused me a lot of delay," said a passenger named Zhang, who planned to fly to Xiamen city but was forced to get off in Hefei because of heavy fog coming down in the morning in East China's Anhui province on Nov 17.

"A total of eight scheduled flights were delayed since 8:14 this morning due to the thick fog," said Jiang Xiaodong, who works in the publicity department of Luogang Airport in Hefei, the provincial capital. "More than 800 passengers affected by the fog are waiting for the latest boarding announcements in the waiting lounge, but they fully understand the reasons for this delay," said Jiang, adding that all the delayed flights were resumed as the weather condition improved after 10:30 am.

"Fortunately, I wasn't affected by the fog and got off on time," said Ubert Ardizzone, an Italian who flew to Hefei on business from Wenzhou city.

Not only was the airport affected by fog, but also all expressway entrances in Hefei were temporarily closed. "Considering the poor visibility, which is less than 50 meters on all the expressways, we closed the entrances to the highways around the whole city until 11:30 am," said Jia Wenrong, a policeman from the Traffic Police Division in Hefei city.

However, he also noted that the bad weather conditions hadn't caused any problems for people within the urban areas owing to sufficient assistance from traffic policemen.

"There will be another foggy day tomorrow in our province and enough attention must be paid by all citizens," said Chen Xiaohong, chief weather forecaster in Anhui's Provincial Meteorological Observatory.