Northern China has launched full-scale clearing efforts to ensure smooth and safe traffic after multiple regions experienced the first snowfalls of the winter season.
In Inner Mongolia, snowfall began on Thursday night and continued through Friday morning in the northern and western parts of the autonomous region. Ordos City in the west experienced mild to moderate snow in most areas, with the northern part receiving the most snowfall of over five millimeters.
"The snow removal team has been working around the clock to clear snow and reduce slip hazards on sections prone to icing, including bridges, slopes, and curves. This aims to minimize the impacts of snowfall on road traffic," said Liu Feng, chief of a local highway maintenance station.
Snowfall in Jinan, capital of north China's Shandong Province, has been strengthening since 14:00 on Friday, with the local weather service upgrading the snowstorm warning signal from blue to yellow at 19:20 on the day.
Local authorities prepared over 1,670 snow removal machines for operation and immediately started clearing work as precipitation began.
Meanwhile, in north-central China's Gansu, temperatures in the rural Jishishan County dropped about 10 degrees Celsius as the rest of the province was largely affected by Friday's snowfall.
Gansu is a crucial passageway for traffic between China's eastern and western regions, so local authorities acted quickly to ensure highway safety.
"We applied deicing agents on sharp curves, steep slopes, and bridges, and increased patrols on roads in case any emergency situations may come up," said Che Yifan, deputy chief of a local highway maintenance station.
Snow also covered the Chinese capital Beijing on Friday, prompting emergency responses from local transportation authorities, with over 4,000 personnel and more than 2,600 pieces of machinery being dispatched to carry out the clearing effort.
Prompt clearing efforts begin amid season's first snowfall in northern China
Pakistani warplanes struck several locations across Afghanistan on Thursday night and Friday, killing at least six people, including a woman and a child, and wounding more than a dozen others, local officials said.
The strikes hit a fuel depot near the country's Kandahar Airport, areas in the capital Kabul, and the eastern Nangarhar Province.
A Pakistani security source said the strikes targeted hideouts belonging to the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
In Kabul's 21st police district, one of the areas hit, a market was left in ruins. Several cars were destroyed, and windows of buildings in the market and nearby areas were shattered. A crater caused by the Pakistani airstrikes was also visible.
"This is my car. I had parked it here, and it was the only way I could bring food to my family's table. It was my sole source of income and my only means of employment. Now my car is in this condition, and I have no other way to provide for my family," said Mohamad Ghulam, a taxi driver.
The airstrikes destroyed a house, killing four members of a single family. More than a dozen other households in the area reported their homes either fully or partially destroyed.
One of the victims was 22-year-old Hedayatullah, who had just been married. He was killed alongside his pregnant wife, as well as his brother and sister.
"Hedayatullah got married nine months ago. His brother was 18 years old. He himself was 22 years old, he also had a 12-year-old sister, and his wife was about 19 years old and was pregnant," said Ghulam Sakhi, a relative of the victims.
"This neighbor of ours was a family of five. Their mother was not present at the moment of the bombardment, but the rest of them lost their lives. It was Hedayatuallah's family. From my own family, two of my daughters, my sister-in-law, my brother, and two nieces got injured," said Mohamad Homayoun, a survivor.
In the past weeks, scores of people from both sides have been killed or injured in the conflict between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, according to officials from the two countries.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has called for an immediate halt to cross-border clashes, warning that the escalating violence is driving a surge in civilian casualties and deepening a humanitarian crisis.
At least 6 killed, more than a dozen wounded in Pakistani airstrikes on Afghanistan: officials
