Residents of smoggy Beijing accessorize with variety of face masks, bringing

Schools closed and rush-hour roads were much quieter than normal as Beijing’s firs…

Any measure addressing only Beijing “can only have limited results”, he said.

Red, the highest alert, is issued when PM 2.5 concentrations have hit more than 250 micrograms per cubic metres for three consecutive days.

“An air purifier is a must at home”, said Sun Yuanyuan, 30, an employee of a foreign company.

In Beijing, vehicles with number plates ending with odd numbers were not allowed to run as the city imposed the odd-even number system for the first time since 2013.

The horror smash appeared to have been caused by thick smog which has triggered a “red alert” by authorities in the China.

Workers install a Christmas tree on display outside a shopping mall in a heavy pollution haze in Beijing, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015.

Beijing hotel staffer Fan Jinglong said the smog forecast was “really worrisome”.

She wears face masks on most winter days, and she bought an air purifier two years ago, she said.

It is expected to disperse on Thursday afternoon as a cold front arrives. Driving is restricted and schools are closed. The public transport strain will be handled by adding more subway trains and buses.

Five days of steadily worsening pollution cut visibility within some parts of Beijing to 300 feet or less and delayed many flights into the city’s main airport, prompting Beijing’s Office of Emergency Management to issue the red alert.

He Jinglong, a physical education teacher of the affiliated school of Beijing Jiaotong University, led students in indoor exercise yesterday.

Bernhard Schwartländer, the World Health Organization’s representative in China, said the alert “means, first and foremost, that the Beijing authorities are taking air quality, and related health issues, very seriously”. They included trips to Tangshan, three hours from Beijing, or as far away as Indonesia. For example, one monitoring site in Beijing that gave an index reading of 308 midday Tuesday also had a PM2.5 level of 258 micrograms per cubic meter.

At this moment in time, a high percentage of Beijingers can be seen wearing pollution marks, as a result of being significantly anxious about the invisible effects of air pollution on their health.

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.

The rise in smog levels comes just a week after Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke at the COP21 climate change conference in Paris where he urged nations across the world to unite to reduce carbon emissions. This is different from the effect of greenhouse gases, which absorb solar radiation and create warming effects.