The second sandstorm to hit China in lower than a fortnight has reversed the colors of the sky, turning the solar blue and the heavens yellow.
Beijing woke on Sunday morning shrouded in thick mud carrying extraordinarily excessive ranges of hazardous particles.
The sandstorm was fuelled by winds from drought-hit Mongolia and north-western China.
Visibility within the metropolis was decreased, with the tops of some skyscrapers obscured by the sandstorm. Pedestrians have been pressured to cowl their eyes as gusts of mud swept by the streets.
The China Meteorological Administration issued a yellow alert on Friday, warning {that a} sandstorm was spreading from Mongolia into northern Chinese language provinces together with Internal Mongolia, Shanxi, Liaoning and Hebei, which surrounds Beijing.
Because the sandstorm hit Beijing on Sunday morning, air air pollution ranges rose to a most degree of 500, in response to Beijing’s actual time air high quality index. Ranges of the pollutant PM10, which might penetrate the lungs, handed 2,000 micrograms per cubic metre.
Ranges of PM2.5, smaller particles that may penetrate the bloodstream, reached 462. The World Well being Group recommends common every day PM2.5 concentrations of simply 25.
The storm precipitated havoc at airports in Internal Mongolia, with greater than half of flights cancelled from the Baotou and Chifeng airports resulting from poor visibility, the South China Morning Submit reported.
The China Meteorological Administration stated the current sandstorms originated from Mongolia, the place comparatively hotter temperatures this spring and decreased rain resulted in bigger areas of naked earth.
“The dynamics for sandstorms and transmission of mud are good now,” Zhang Tao, chief forecaster for China’s Central Meteorological Observatory advised state-run Folks’s Each day on Monday.
Zhang stated north and northwestern China had much less snow cowl and rain this yr and that temperatures since February had been increased, resulting in additional drying and dusty climate, kicked up by stronger than common winds.
Common temperatures in Mongolia and northern China have been about 6°C increased than regular in March, in response to Zhang.
Northern China has lengthy suffered sandstorms as deserts within the area unfold additional south, with deforestation intensifying the frequency throughout Mao Zedong’s Nice Leap Ahead interval from 1958 to 1961.
Giant-scale deforestation can also be thought-about a consider China’s mud storms. Beijing has planted a “nice inexperienced wall” of timber to lure incoming mud, in addition to attempting to create air corridors that channel the wind and permit sand and different pollution to go by extra rapidly.
Reuters contributed to this report