First ever red alert issued for smog in Beijing

On a day that Beijing declared its first ever air pollution red alert, Delhi surpassed its Chinese counterpart.

Some residents questioned why the red alert was being put in place now, as opposed to last week, which measured pollution levels at over 500. At these levels, it is recommended to avoid outdoor activities if at all possible. Until then, schools in the capital will be forced to close, automobiles can only be driven on alternate days based on their license plate numbers, government agencies must keep 30 percent of their cars off the streets, and outdoor barbecuing and fireworks are banned.

The alert came into effect at 07:00 local time on Tuesday (23:00 GMT Monday).

After hearing of the school closings late Monday, Beijing mother Jiang Xia booked tickets for a 3,200 kilometer (2,000-mile) flight to the relatively clean southwestern city of Kunming, for herself and her 8-year-old daughter who she said suffers nosebleeds in the smog.

One thing is for certain, both Delhi and Beijing need to take drastic measures to curb pollution.

The city’s roads and sidewalks were much quieter than usual Tuesday, and small-business owners like Jia Xiaojiang, who makes egg pancakes, complained of fewer customers.

The alert is expected to be lifted on Thursday as winds along a passing front should displace all of the smog out of the city. But this time, it prompted the government to issue a “red alert”, shutting down schools, construction sites, and keeping half of the city’s vehicles off the roads.

Any score above 300 is considered “severely polluted”, according to China Real Time. “How could they not issue a red alert then and issue a red alert now?”

Still, the red alert suggests Chinese officials are taking pollution seriously after many years of denying any problems, environmentalists said. A study led by atmospheric chemist Jos Lelieveld, of Germany’s Max Planck Institute, published this year in Nature magazine, estimated that 1.4 million people each year die prematurely because of pollution in China.

Officials from China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MHURD) have blamed Beijing’s smog on vehicle carbon emissions, while the Ministry of Environmental Protection has said the major causes are coal-burning central heating systems, which MHURD oversees. Employees at Beijing’s Kids’s Hospital have been overwhelmed by the assortment of children in search of remedy after being sickened by the poisonous air.

“Before, they were more or less somewhat reluctant to acknowledge the problem”.