The Wider Image: China's ice sculptors build frozen castles in the cold
For more than 300 "ice miners" in Harbin, work begins in the numbing cold before dawn every day on the frozen Songhua, a broad river that winds its way through the northeastern Chinese city. Wielding long ice picks, the workers break up the frozen surface of the kilometre-wide river into crate-sized blocks of ice. Many of them construction labourers or farmers, they wear knee-high rubber boots, down jackets, thick gloves and hats with flaps to protect their ears from the frigid air. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY SEARCH "HARBIN RAWLINS" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES