Dozens of flights were cancelled Thursday after a snowstorm hit Kazakhstan's capital Nur-Sultan amid unseasonably warm temperatures.
Strong winds began battering the city of one million on Wednesday evening, leading to flights to Frankfurt, Moscow and Tashkent being cancelled Thursday.
Other flights were delayed by up to 12 hours.
The national meteorological agency said it expected snowfall, hail and winds reaching 30 metres per second to continue for the next three days in the northern region where Nur-Sultan is located.
The agency said that temperatures hovering just below zero in the region are 8 to 13 degrees celsius warmer than usual at this time of year.
City authorities on Thursday cancelled school classes -- a regular occurrence during winters in the world's second coldest capital after Mongolia's Ulaanbaatar.
Steppe city Nur-Sultan became Kazakhstan's capital in 1997, replacing Almaty which lies 1,000 kilometres to the south.
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