BEIJING - Amid the heavy downpour in the capital on Thursday, people turned to micro blogs to share traffic information and kill time while waiting in congestion.

On Thursday, the heaviest rain hit Beijing in the afternoon, causing traffic congestion on the road, flooding a few subway stations and submerging some cars in water.

Many micro-bloggers posted pictures they took of these rare scenes, and shared the latest traffic information.

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Cui Xiaoyu, who works at a media company in Sanlitun, a 40-minute bus trip from her home in Jianguomen, felt lucky that after more than two hours on a bus she finally arrived at home around 9 pm.

"Without the information I got from the micro blog, the time I spent on the way would have been much longer," she said.

She learned from the micro blog that her usual way home was paralyzed because of the rain, so she took another bus route.

Li Xiao'ou, a bank employee, was not so lucky. He was stranded on a commuter bus for three hours before arriving home at around 9 pm, but he was not bored.

He checked the micro blog all the time to follow the weather and traffic reports, and also posted more than 10 times.

He interacted with friends online and enjoyed interesting pictures shared by netizens.

A picture showing drain water backing up into the Taoranting subway station at 6:49 pm had been reposted nearly 30,000 times and got more than 4,000 feedback messages by 8:30 pm.

"I can't imagine how I would have spent my time without the micro blog. It made my waiting hours much happier than before," he said.

The city's authorities were also using micro blogs to release the latest traffic information.

The municipal public security bureau used its micro blog account - Ping'an Beijing, or Safe Beijing - at Weibo.com to post more than 20 messages about the rain and traffic situation starting from 4 pm.

One piece of information about affected subway Line 1, which was put on the micro blog at 6:40 pm, was forwarded nearly 400 times by 8 pm.