Red alerts, flights canceled as smog blankets northeast
Print Edition
AUTHORITIES in Tianjin grounded dozens of flights and closed most highways yesterday after severe smog blanketed the city, one of more than 40 in China’s northeast to issue pollution warnings over the weekend.
The air quality index (AQI) readings at some monitoring stations in Tianjin, a port and industrial city near Beijing, peaked above 400.
China’s environmental watchdog issued a five-day warning on Friday about choking smog spreading across the northeast and ordered factories to shut, recommended people stay indoors, and curbed traffic and construction work.
Pollution alerts have become increasingly common in China’s northern industrial heartland, especially during winter when energy demand — much of it met by coal — soars.
In addition, heavy winds force pollution from nearby provinces to the Beijing-Tianjin area where it remains suspended over the cities.
By 10am yesterday in Tianjin, 35 international flights had been delayed or cancelled and all but one highway in and out of the city were shut, Xinhua news agency reported.
With the density of pollutants expected to peak yesterday and Monday, Tianjin’s environmental protection department had strengthened inspections to control sources of pollution including factories.
Beijing and 22 other cities imposed emergency measures on Saturday, including ordering cars off the road and telling factories and schools to close, after pollution soared to more than 10 times safe levels.
A news website said yesterday that the number of children taken to Beijing hospitals with breathing trouble had escalated. Photographs showed waiting rooms crowded with parents carrying children who wore face masks.
Authorities in Jinan raised that city’s alert to the second-highest level yesterday after the city “basically disappeared” in the haze, the newspaper Qilu Evening News reported.
Pictures on the newspaper’s website showed downtown office towers as ghostly silhouettes at midday.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection said last night that the country’s latest bout of air pollution had so far been less serious than expected, thanks to counter-measures, according to Xinhua.
Beijing’s city government ordered 1,200 factories near the capital to shut or cut output on Saturday.
Also on Saturday, 22 cities issued red alerts including the leading steelmaking city Tangshan in Hebei Province around Beijing.
Red alerts are issued when the AQI is forecast to exceed 200 for more than four days in succession, 300 for more than two days or 500 for at least 24 hours. Tianjin was placed on orange alert — the second highest level — yesterday.
In Beijing, the city’s environmental monitoring center showed air quality readings of above 300 in some parts yesterday afternoon, but in most the index was below 200.
“When I went out yesterday I didn’t wear a mask and my throat really hurt and I felt dizzy. It was hard to breathe through my nose,” said Chen Xiaochong, a hotel manager in the capital. “This pollution really is quite dangerous for people, so it’s important to protect the environment.”
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