More than 70 flights at Baiyun Airport in south China's Guangdong province have been delayed or canceled after a thunderstorm hit the airport Thursday morning.

As of 5:00 p.m., 47 flights into and out of the airport have been delayed and 16 canceled, while 10 others landed at alternate airports in the cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai, airport authorities said.

Most of the canceled flights were bound for the cities of Chengdu, Taiyuan, Shanghai and Xi'an, airport authorities said.

Airport authorities issued a blue-coded rainstorm alert at 10:15 a.m. and raised the alert level to yellow at 1:05 p.m. The yellow alert remains in place.

China has a four-tier rainstorm alert system, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

Several flights out of Beijing have also been delayed due to thunderstorms there. Weather forecasters have said the thunderstorms are likely to continue across the country for the next several days, which may create more problems for airports.

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