Several parts of China are battling another deep freeze as people return from week-long celebrations of the year's biggest holiday. Just before it started, blizzards and icy rain had stranded travellers on railways and roads.
State media said Sunday's milestone in the Tuerhong township of Fuyun county was the lowest since records began in Xinjiang, surpassing a temperature of minus 51.5 C (minus 60.7 F) set on Jan. 21, 1960.
The figure was just shy of the lowest national temperature of minus 53 C (minus 63.4 F) in Mohe, a city in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang on Jan. 22 last year.
Comment: Two record cold winters in succession then. "Global boiling!"
Comment: Meanwhile in not too far away Kyrgyzstan: Snow as high as a horse falls in Kyrgyzstan