Thick Blanket of Gray Smog Covers Beijing

Beijing’s environmental protection authority has been criticised for not issuing the red alert – the highest of its four-level system – before, when the city was experiencing hazardous pollution over a period of five consecutive days from November 27.

Vehicle use will be limited as cars are allowed on the roads on alternating days depending on the odd or even numbers of their licence plates.

“And air purifiers at home are a must”, Beijing resident Sun Yuanyuan said.

Beijing has issued its first red alert for smog, urging schools to close and invoking restrictions on factories and traffic that will keep half the city’s vehicles off the roads.

While many Beijing residents took their concerns for the smog and recent red alert to the internet, for not issuing an earlier alert for last weeks exceeding hazardous and heavy smog. Schools closed and rush-hour roads were much quieter than normal as Beijing’s first-ever red alert for smog took effe…

The pollution index reached 440 when measured inside the respiratory ward, almost 20 times the World Health Organization’s recommended level. “Smog surely highlight the urgency of dealing with climate change and consolidate our resolution to resolve it”, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

The warning was an upgrade from an orange alert issued over the weekend when factories are closed, people asked to wear masks among others.

Giving the state government a way out before the measure is even implemented, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the government will withdraw the rule if the people of the city face any difficulties. And to top it all off, China is still very much relying on coal-generated electric power and heating.

Previous stretches of severe smog have lasted more than three days but without any red alert.

According to the New York Times, Chinese cities, especially those in the north, are known to be some of the world’s biggest air polluters, with industrial coal burning playing a major role. There have been 1.4 million premature deaths in China because of air pollution, according to a study led by Jos Lelieveld of Germany’s Max Planck Institute and published this year in Nature magazine.

Near Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, concentrations of PM2.5 – particulate considered the most danger to health – stood at 173 micrograms per cubic meter in the past 24 hours, according to data on the website of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center.