Hit by a heavy dust storm from Wednesday night to Thursday morning, the Kashi airport, in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was forced to close.

Yang Lihong, weatherman of the Kashi prefectural meteorological bureau said that it is the seventh instance of choking sand and dust weather to hit Kashi this year, which is affected by cold airfrom Siberia.

The Kashi weather bureau issued a yellow warning signal at 19:00 Wednesday and asked local residents to make preparations forthe bad weather.

Airport staff told Xinhua that because of vague visibility caused by the weather, the airport has cancelled all flights.

The dust and sand weather was still continuing at press time.

(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2006)