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Heavy snow continued to batter a vast swathe of the country yesterday, stopping traffic, grounding planes and cutting off power supplies in some areas.

Some 10,000 vehicles and 30,000 people were stranded yesterday in the northern province of Shanxi by snows that began on Monday.

In Shijiazhuang, capital of North China's Hebei province, continuous snow yesterday paralyzed all transportation, including aviation and highways, provincial authorities said yesterday.

The heavy snow has cut off electricity in some areas of the city since Monday. Repair work is under way.

The city shut down all the schools in the urban area except boarding schools yesterday.

Similar situations happened in other major cities hit by the blizzards in north China.

In Beijing, all the schools and kindergartens were allowed to reschedule classes given the traffic inconveniences caused by the storm, according to an emergency notice posted by the Beijing Municipal Government.

As the capital embraces more snow, Beijingers began flooding into stores to buy up new snowboarding and skiing gear before hitting the slopes.

Winter sports stores reported sales usually only seen at the peak of winter, and at least two outdoor snow parks said they would open early to cope with demand.

The Chinese Ski Association says that Beijing, which has more wealthy residents than other Chinese cities and an increasing number of good ski resorts, is becoming the major winter sports market in China.

It said about 700,000 Chinese currently ski or snowboard, and the total number will reach 10 million across the country in five years.

According to , a local ticketing agency, more than 30,000 Beijingers go skiing or snowboarding every day from the end of November to March.

Taxi passengers in Beijing will have an extra 1 yuan added to their fares within days after the city's fuel price hit its highest level in years.

Under a new municipal government policy, passengers will pay an extra 1 yuan for each trip they make as a fuel surcharge.

Passengers with a 10 yuan fare - the smallest journey possible - will not have to pay the surcharge.

It follows a price increase for gasoline. The city's 66,000 cab drivers currently pay 6.66 yuan for each liter of fuel.

The policy stipulates that the price of taxi fares could rise further if gasoline prices rise above 7.1 yuan.

The last change in taxi fares was in 2006, when it was increased to 2.4 yuan per km.

The government refused to reveal when the new pricing system would take effect, but FM103.9 Beijing Communications Radio quoted anonymous sources as saying the policy would come into force "in the next few days".

Britons are among the ugliest people in the world, according to a dating website that says it only allows "beautiful people" to join.

An emailed statement from the website showed that fewer than one in eight British men and just three in 20 women who have applied to have been accepted.

Existing members of the "elite dating site" rate how attractive potential members are over a 48 hour period, after applicants upload a recent photo and personal profile.

Swedish men have proved the most successful, with 65 percent being accepted, while Norwegian women are considered the most beautiful with 76 percent accepted.

Only the male Russian and Polish applicants fared worse than British men, although Russian women had a 44 percent acceptance rate.