Heavy snow has hit Beijing, stranding thousands of passengers at the Chinese capital's main airport and casting an unusual quiet over normally busy streets as people stayed out of the freezing weather.

More than 80 percent of flights at Beijing's Capital International Airport, the country's busiest, were cancelled or delayed, state television said, with only one of its three runways open. Most of the motorways out of Beijing were closed too, with several centimetres of snow blanketing roads and Sunday's temperature dropping to -14 Celsius. Forecasters say the snow is expected to stop falling in Beijing on Monday, but temperatures are likely to drop further, with lows of around -20 Celsius.

Beijing, which over the past few years has seen little winter snow, has experienced several falls so far this season. The bad weather is also affecting large parts of the rest of northern and northeastern China.

Photo Beijing snow by skobo (Flickr)