Incredible scenes as mainland shoppers strip supermarket shelves ahead of big chill

Residents across some mainland cities are frantically stocking up food in preparation for a front of very cold weather that has already caused traffic chaos and closed schools.

Temperatures in Yakeshi in Inner Mongolia (內蒙古) dropped to minus 28 degrees Celsius yesterday, while Harbin (哈爾濱) in Heilongjiang (黑龍江) province experienced minus 19 degrees.

Beijing is expecting minus 17 degrees on Saturday and the cold front is expected to head south.

The National Meteorological Centre predicted temperatures would drop by as much as 10 degrees across much of the country over the next four days and many local authorities have issued yellow alerts for the cold – the second highest on a four-level scale.

The cold front has come about after a warm current from Europe entered the North Pole region and drove the polar weather south at the end of last year. The vortex lingered over Russian Siberia before moving south to East Asia.