Another sandstorm blows east from desert

The second sandstorm in a week, carried by strong winds, covered a large area of the north on Thursday and was forecast to linger into Friday, the national weather authority said on Thursday.

The storm arrived as the State Forestry Administration said the country's expanding shelter forest has worked better in reducing the dust in the originating areas but did little to block the long-distance storm.

At least seven provincial regions, including the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Shanxi province and the Hebei-Beijing-Tianjin area, were engulfed by sand and dust in gusting winds on Thursday, the same areas hit by the year's strongest sandstorm a week earlier, the China Meteorological Administration said.