Production at industrial plants has been curtailed, highways have been shut down, and the movement of materials at construction sites has come to a halt in Beijing, amid the heavy smog which has been engulfing the capital for recent days.
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Both the United States embassy in Beijing and the municipal government said the air pollution in the capital was at hazardous levels, with the main pollutants in both cases PM2.5 particles, very fine pollutants that are especially harmful to human health.
Clean air campaigner Hsu Hsin-hsin (許心欣) said the administration should lower the threshold concentration of the primary level to 71 micrograms per cubic meter, which should result in the cancelation of outdoor activities at schools due to health concerns.
He, however, said a substantial improvement of the environment will only be possible if pollution is reduced by a further 30 to 50 per cent. PM 2.5 levels were in the “severe” category in many parts of the city, with the most polluted spot, Anand Vihar, showing levels up to 530 mcg/cubic m between 2.30pm and 8pm.
Beijing’s severe pollution is expected to last until a cold front arrives Tuesday, the city’s environmental protection bureau said on its website. China formed a five-year plan to cut pollutants in 2010, which involved shrinking levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and ammonia nitrogen in the air. Chinese authorities raised the environmental alert to the second highest level – orange.
Indeed, thanks in part to pollution from coal fires lit to keep away the winter chill, on Monday the Chinese capital suffered its worst air quality of 2015. But the country still depends on coal for more than 60 percent of its power.
“A few days of breathing in the refreshing Delhi smog and suddenly I don’t miss my daily cigarettes”, resident Rahul Dutta Gupta said on Twitter.
Air pollution kills an average of 4,000 people a day in China, according to a study earlier this year by Berkeley Earth, an independent research group funded largely by educational grants, which cited coal-burning as the likely principal cause.
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