According to the BBC, as of Tuesday 07:00 local time, the US Embassy in Beijing reported via an air pollution monitor that the city’s levels of PM 2.5, a highly poisonous chemical found in the air, were at a high with 291 micrograms.
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“You have to do whatever you can to protect yourself”, Beijing resident Li Huiwen said while stopping at a market.
The World Health Organization’s recommended maximum exposure to microscopic particles is 25 with levels in Beijing far surpassing that figure. The other alerts-blue, yellow and orange-are milder warnings but still issued on “heavy pollution” days.
Auto use is being halved by allowing only odd or even numbered license plates on the road at one time and heavy vehicles including garbage trucks are banned from the streets.
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.
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”. But Beijing’s education commission later issued a separate order for all schools to close until tomorrow. Some surmised that the move reflected a change in officials’ attitudes more than a change in specific pollution levels that have plagued major cities for decades.
This was for the very first time that such an alarm has been raised to its highest level since the introduction of an emergency air-pollution response system in 2013.
“A cold front moving through the area on Thursday will bring a breeze that will help to usher in a fresh air mass from the north and clear smog out of the city”, Zartman said.
China has issued its first ever red alert over the alarming spread of smog in the country. Beijing authorities said at the time that the initial forecasts were for less time so no alert was called for, but critics maintained they were seeking to avoid the toughest restrictions for political reasons.
China’s polluted air has had severe health effects.
Six people died and several more were injured in a 33-vehicle pileup on a highway in northern China, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
China’s smog endemic is at its worst in the winter when an increased amount of greenhouse gas emissions come from the burning of coal for electricity and heating.
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While emissions standards have been tightened and heavy investments made in solar, wind and other renewable energy, China still depends on coal for more than 60 percent of its power.
