China Pollution: First Ever Red Alert Takes Effect In Beijing

Under the code red, temporary restrictions say that all schools are required to close, cars can only drive on alternate days depending on license plate numbers, and outdoor barbecuing and fireworks are banned.

“If you look to China they really like British products”. The safety measures can’t eliminate smog, but an only contain the harm, local authorities said.

“I want to show this absurdity to more people”, Wang said on Tuesday as pollution levels in the Chinese capital soared to levels 40 times higher than levels deemed safe by the World Health Organisation.

One angry Beijing resident, Eve Lin, 47, said: “I think it’s wrong to simply think we have to get used to living with bad air quality and not demand that more is done to solve the problem”.

The notice, issued after days of heavy smog last week, also puts traffic restrictions on certain types of vehicles in the city of 22.5 million people.

Some businesses closed and others said employees could work from home for the duration. But now as the poisonous smog continues to revolve around Beijing, strict precautionary measures are necessary to be taken. The smog was predicted to last three more days.

“Today wasn’t as serious as the previous time”, said one user.

“That’s a sign of a different attitude from the Beijing government”, said Dong Liansai, an energy and climate campaigner for Greenpeace who is based in Beijing.

Despite Beijing’s intentions in drastically improving the quality of its air, the city’s officials are aware that imposing the rules on citizens will be hard since they were only given a day to adjust to the emergency warning.

It’s worth noting that while Beijing’s decision to issue a red alert set off a whirlwind of global attention, Delhi, the Indian capital, is also in the throes of its own smog emergency.

That city has no pollution alert system but has been suffering from weeks of choking smog, with PM 2.5 levels reaching 377 on Tuesday according to USA embassy measurements.

The fuss, of course, is about the amount of unsafe tiny particles of pollution in the air known as PM2.5 that go straight into the bloodstream, and outdoor readings have been hovering at around 300 most of the day – 12 times the World Health Organization’s safety limit.

Six people have died and another four have been injured in a 33-vehicle pileup in heavy smog on a highway in north China’s Shanxi Province on Tuesday morning.

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

“China and other developing countries are victims of climate change”.