Sandstorm sends Beijing pollution levels off the charts
Officials are warning residents in Beijing and other parts of northern China about hazardous air pollution levels after strong winds blew in a sandstorm today.
Air in the capital turned a yellowish hue and the sky turned into a noxious soup of smog and dust, NBC News reports. At 6 a.m. local time, the U.S. Embassy’s air quality index showed a reading of 516 for particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter. On the American air pollution index, the air at that time and throughout much of the morning was classified as “beyond index.”
Photo: This composite image shows Beijing’s skyline during Thursday’s sandstorm (top) and during good weather on Feb. 19, 2013. (Feng Li / Getty Images)
It’s odd that a sandstorm caused such awful air quality. They have plenty of other reasons to be concerned about the terrible air quality.
Nope, this is not a still from Blade Runner. It’s smog in Beijing.
Some of my friends in Beijing have said the air burns their eyes and lungs. Here’s a picture of my colleague with his double-barreled air mask. Intense. Note he’s wearing a trash bag to protect his suit from the dirty air when he goes out.
As we pointed out the other day, Beijing hit an extremely high level on the air-quality chart over the weekend. This is scary stuff, guys.
We need a new scale: On Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, which marks off the city’s air quality based on a 0-500 scale set by the EPA, detected air quality so bad that the Twitter account that updates people on the embassy’s air quality detection spat out a 755. 500 was supposed to be the maximum, by the way.
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