6 killed in massive pileup in north China due to heavy smog

Schools closed and rush-hour roads were much quieter than normal as Beijings first-ever red alert for smog took effect Tuesday, closing many factories and invoking restrictions to keep half the citys vehicles off the roads.

Schools were closed, work at outdoor construction sites suspended, and factories have been ordered to halt operations.

Emergency measures include restricting road traffic, except electric vehicles, using an odd and even licence plate number system pioneered before the Beijing 2008 Olympics. In addition, 30% of government cars in Beijing will be banned from streets on an odd/even basis.

“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.

Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has been suggesting to Chinese officials that USA air pollution regulations, specifically President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, could prove a useful model. However, those had initially been forecast to last three days or less, so they did not trigger a red alert.

“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.

There’s big trouble in not-so-little China today, as the capital of the People’s Republic has issued the direst of smog alerts for the first time. At that point, the air pollution monitor at the United States embassy in the city was measuring 291 micrograms of harmful PM 2.5 particles per cubic metre.

A Beijing resident surnamed Li said the current smog wasn’t as strong as last week’s “airpocalypse”, however, when a yellow alert was issued.

Beijing made global headlines during the December Paris climate change talks when its air quality went off most scales with a PM2.5 reading of 678 near Tiananmen Square.

“But as I say we get a really good combination of quality labour and quality materials that means we come out with a really good quality mask”.

“We had really serious smog about a week ago, but they didn’t issue a red alert then [while he was in Paris]”, Fang said.

But now as the poisonous smog continues to revolve around Beijing, strict precautionary measures are necessary to be taken. Viewing one chemical plant, inspector Zhang Yongge said all three of its sets of desulfurizing equipment have been running at full capacity since the orange alert was issued.

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A grey soupy haze subsumed Beijing’s landmarks, and convenience stores did brisk business selling air-filtering masks as residents sought to protect themselves even as they spent as little time outdoors as possible.