Children taken to hospital as hazardous smog continues to overpower Beijing

Near Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, concentrations of PM2.5 – the fine particulates that pose the greatest risk to human health – stood at 650 micrograms per cubic m as of 8 am, according to the local environmental monitoring centre.

The density of risky particles exceed more than 20 times the exposure level recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to Fang Chong, chief weather forecaster of the Central Meteorological Station, the cold air coming from the west will help flow away the smog.

The capital city of China issued its highest smog warning of the year on Sunday, just a day before world leaders – including Chinese President Xi Jinping – gathered in Paris for the United Nations climate talks.

The smog alert comes as global leaders arrive in Paries for the COP21 Climate Summit.

Pollution in Beijing is notoriously bad, but Leavenworth says the past five days have been “dispiriting”.

Following the announcement of the orange smog alert, authorities in Beijing have instructed industrial plants to decrease the use of heavy materials that can trigger further pollution. Monitors throughout the city recorded hazardous levels of toxic pollutants. Neon signs barely punctured the gloom, and many Beijing residents wore masks of various kinds while walking the streets.

Visibility fell to several hundred meters (yards), leaving buildings silhouetted in the haze. Construction work throughout the city was also halted.

China’s state news agency Xinhua said tests confirmed that the majority of the latest spike in pollution came from coal burning.

The Indian capital, which typically suffers a deterioration of air quality in the winter, was blanked in a particularly thick cloud of hazardous, choking smog on Monday.

The air quality worsened on Friday and continued to deteriorate throughout the weekend, prompting the city government to issue an orange alert on Sunday.

A baby peers out from inside a stranded vehicle on a highway between Beijing and Hebei, which also reported extremely polluted air Monday.

A woman wearing a mask to protect herself from pollutants walks past a construction site on a heavily polluted day in Beijing, Monday, Nov. 30, 2015.