Smog shrouds parts of China again

In an online statement, the Beijing city government ordered all outdoor construction work to stop on red alert days, besides urging schools to close.

The smog will reduce visibility to 3 to 5 kilometers Sunday in Beijing, Tianjin and the central and southern parts of Hebei Province, the Beijing municipal meteorological bureau said in a press release.

Schools in the Chinese capital kept students indoors and parents brought their kids to hospitals with breathing ailments Tuesday as Beijing grappled with extremely severe air pollution for the fifth straight day.

Acrid-smelling smog rolled back into Beijing, shrouding the city of 20 million people in a gray haze four days after northern China reported the worst pollution in a year.

Red alert is the highest possible state of caution that can be declared.

The warning means that schools will have to shutdown and construction and other industry in the city will be shut down.

However, the government has not raised any alarm over the current air quality and no advisories have been issued to the public. Some critics have accused authorities of downplaying the severity of the situation.

China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, plans to upgrade coal power plants over the next five years to tackle pollution, which has become a rising concern for the public.

State-backed Global Times newspaper reportedly quoted environmental experts as saying that this “buck passing” showed a “lack of pollution source analysis and coordinated efforts to effectively combat pollution”.

Forecasters are suggesting the smog is going to linger in the greater-Beijing area until at least Thursday, with rain expected to clear the air at that point.