Sandstorms, dangerous pollution return to Beijing

The capital Beijing has seen frequent air pollution and several unseasonal sandstorms in recent weeks.

Forecasters have issued a blue weather warning for the sandstorm. China has a four-tiered, color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe warning and blue the least severe.

Sandstorm outside the Forbidden City. Photo: Reuters

According to the website of the Beijing Municipal Ecological and Environmental Monitoring Center, smog and gray clouds could be seen covering Beijing on Tuesday morning, and the city's real-time air quality index was at a severely polluted level.

According to IQAir, a website that provides data and information on air quality, the concentration of fine particles in the air in Beijing is currently 46.2 times higher than the level recommended by the World Health Organization.

The Central Meteorological Observatory said dozens of provinces, including Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Inner Mongolia and Shanghai, will be affected by heavy sand and dust storms until 8 a.m. on Wednesday.

The sandstorm once again became a hot topic of discussion on Weibo, China's social media platform, attracting 2.178 million conversations.

Beijing is prone to sandstorms in March and April due to its proximity to the vast Gobi Desert.

A Chinese government official at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment recently said the number of sandstorms is now four times higher than in 1960, due to rising temperatures and lower rainfall in the deserts of northern China and Mongolia.

Hoang Nam (according to Reuters)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/bao-cat-o-nhiem-nguy-hiem-quay-tro-lai-bac-kinh-post243254.html