The southern suburbs of Beijing had a PM2.5 reading of 326 at 2 pm on Sunday, a level of high health risk.
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And it comes just weeks after AQI readings hit a record 1200 in Shenyang, after central heating was turned on for winter in the north-eastern city.
The capital of the world’s most populous nation was blanketed in hazardous, choking smog as climate change talks began in Paris, where China’s leader is among the participants.
As of 10 a.m. on Monday in Beijing, those levels rose to 480 micrograms, according to the World Air Quality Index based in Beijing, China. At levels higher than 300, residents are encouraged to remain indoors. Visibility has reportedly fallen to a few hundred meters in some places in Beijing.
Such outbreaks are common across China, where Greenpeace recently found almost 80 percent of cities to have had pollution levels that “greatly exceeded” national standards in the first nine months of this year. President Xi Jinping is expected to meet with President Barack Obama on Monday morning.
Long term air pollution does cause health problems, again chronic respiratory problems, heart problems, we know that air pollution is carcinogenic, we know that prolonged exposure can cause lung cancer.
It said that was in the highest band of the scale and was considered to be very hazardous.
“It is nearly impossible to breathe in Beijing now”, wrote Tianxuan Ke’aiduo, a resident of Beijing’s Haidian district, on Weibo, China’s main social media platform. The Ministry of Environmental Protection said Sunday (Nov. 29) (link in Chinese) that heavy smog had covered China’s north, including Beijing, for three days in a row.
The ministry said the number of cities affected by heavy pollution now stands at 23, however a cold front starting on Wednesday would see improvement in the situation.
The air quality worsened on Friday and continued to deteriorate throughout the weekend, prompting the city government to issue an orange alert on Sunday.
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But low wind speeds have meant that polluted air has not been dispersed.
