氷の塔に集団結婚式も…ハルビンの国際氷雪祭、華やかに開幕

【ハルビンＡＦＰ＝時事】中国北東部・黒竜江省の省都ハルビンで5日、毎年恒例の「ハルビン国際氷雪祭2020」の開幕式典が行われ、花火が夜空を彩った。（写真は集団結婚式に参加する新郎新婦ら。中国北東部・黒竜江省ハルビンで行われている「ハルビン国際氷雪祭」で）
　会場には、氷で造られた塔や彫刻作品、雪像が並び、来場者らは、色鮮やかにライトアップされた氷の間を練り歩いた。その他、レースのウエディングドレスにダウンの上着を羽織った花嫁らの姿も。新郎新婦４３組が、「氷の中の集団結婚式」に参加するため列をつくった。５日の午後の気温は氷点下７度まで冷え込んだが、松花江の氷をくりぬいたプールでは寒中水泳大会も行われ、勇気ある参加者らが飛び込んだ。
　今年の氷雪祭には、１７万立方メートルの氷が用いられている。１００人超の作業員らが、凍結した松花江から氷の塊を切り出したという。
　中国は、２０２２年の北京冬季五輪に先立ち、雪と氷を売り物にした観光事業の促進に力を入れており、そうした観光名所に２０１８～２０１９年の冬季には２億２４００万人が訪れた。２０２１～２０２２年には３億４０００万人の観光客を同政府は見込んでいる。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/01/07-13:32）

China's annual ice festival in Harbin has kicked off with couples lining up for a snow-themed mass wedding, swimmers braving frigid waters and frozen palaces rising from the ground.
Fireworks marked the festival's opening on Sunday night as tourists wandered between colourfully illuminated ice towers and monuments in the northeastern city.
Earlier in the day, 43 brides in lace wedding gowns and down jackets waited in line with grooms to take part in a mass ice and snow wedding.
A few brave swimmers plunged into a pool carved from the frozen Songhua River on a day when temperatures stayed below minus seven degrees Celsius (19 Fahrenheit) even in the afternoon.
This year's Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in the province of Heilongjiang required 170,000 cubic metres (six million cubic feet) of ice harvested from the Songhua River by more than 100 workers.
The workers toiled for hours on the ice each day in the weeks before the festival, cutting out thousands of pieces of ice every 12-hour shift.
The Harbin festival, featuring glittering palaces and fantastical scenes sculpted out of ice, has drawn millions of people over the years to one of China's coldest cities.
This year's festivities will coincide with the city's first skiing marathon this week, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
China has ramped up its promotion of snow and ice tourism ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
An expressway is under construction linking Beijing and Zhangjiakou, a city in northern Hebei province that will co-host the Olympics, while a high-speed railway line connecting the two cities opened on December 30.
China expects 340 million people to visit snow and ice attractions in the 2021-2022 winter season, up from 224 million in the 2018-2019 season, Xinhua reported Monday.
- This story accompanies a photo essay by Noel Celis -