First modification: 15/03/2021 – 05:32
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Beijing (AFP)
Beijing woke up to a thick yellowish fog on Monday, caused by a sandstorm hitting the capital and man-made pollution.
The combination of the two phenomena produces a dangerous cocktail for health and reduces visibility to a few hundred meters.
The municipality suspended all outdoor sports activities in schools and advised people suffering from respiratory problems not to go outside.
With their heads covered, most of the inhabitants went to work but some wore protective glasses.
The city’s iconic buildings were barely visible, such as the national television headquarters, whose 234-meter summit was hidden behind a veil of mist.
In the social network Weibo, netizens made the phenomenon one of the issues of the day.
“This orange storm looks like the end of the world,” said one user.
Sand storms, coming from the fenced Gobi Desert, are frequent in spring in northern China, but the Pekingese have not seen such a heavy sky in years.
The specialized site aqicn.org considers air quality “dangerous”. The level of PM10 particles reached the limit of 999 in the early hours of the morning, a rate twenty times higher than the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO). That of PM2.5 particles, even more toxic, was 567, a level rarely reached in recent years in Beijing.
Episodes of extreme pollution are less frequent in recent years in the Chinese capital, where combating pollution is one of the biggest challenges for the country.
© 2021 AFP
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