Super smog closes schools, airports in NE China
Print Edition
Choking clouds of pollution blanketed northeast China yesterday, slashing visibility to a few meters, shutting schools and halting transport in scenes that underscored the nation’s environmental challenges.
Footage on state broadcaster CCTV from Harbin, a city famed for its annual ice festival, showed a screen full of charcoal-brown smog, with faint shapes and colors beneath hinting at roads, cars and traffic signals.
An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers, reached a record reading of 1,000 in some parts of Harbin, home to some 11 million people.
A level above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organization recommends a daily level of no more than 20.
The smog not only forced all primary and middle schools to suspend classes, but shut the airport, highways and some public bus routes, Xinhua news agency reported, blaming the emergency on the first day of the heating being turned on in the city for winter.
Visibility was reportedly reduced to 10 meters in some parts of the city.
The smog is expected to continue for the next 24 hours.
Drivers who jumped red lights because they could not see them “will not be penalized,” Xinhua quoted Harbin traffic official Xue Yuqing as saying.
Visibility in the city center would drop to less than 50 meters, it added.
“How scary! It’s the apocalypse!” one Internet user wrote about the air quality in Harbin, which was a hotly-discussed topic online yesterday.
Some users compared images of the pollution to scenes from a horror movie.
PM2.5 figures began to fall in the early evening but the overall air quality index — a different measure — was still being given as 500, the maximum level on the Chinese scale, and described as “beyond index.”
A top-level red alert for “thick smog or fog” was also issued for the entire province of Heilongjiang, which has Harbin as its capital, along with nearby Jilin and Liaoning provinces.
“After walking outdoors for a while, I found it difficult to breathe,” said Chu Yushu, a Harbin resident.
People headed to drug stores to buy up masks.
“The sale of masks was at least 10 times the normal rate. We sold more than 140 masks this morning in our shop,” said a salesman of a drug store in Xiangfang District, Harbin.
“My mask turned black after I wore it for half an hour,” wrote a netizen in Harbin on his microblog.
Highways were closed and flights disrupted in Jilin and Liaoning.
“The building 50 meters away cannot be seen clearly. I smelt irritating coal smoke when I opened the window of my house,” said Sun Qi, a resident in Changchun, capital of Jilin.
“We were scared by such thick fog when we opened the door to go out. The air quality is so poor outside and the smell irritating.
“We have to stay at home,” 74-year-old Zhong Jinfeng in Changchun told Xinhua. Zhong and his wife usually take a walk every day.
The meteorological station in Changchun issued a red alert at 2:45am yesterday. Many pedestrians and traffic police were wearing masks.
With visibility of less than 100 meters, all 22 flights at Changchun Longjia Airport were delayed.
Visibility was less than 500 meters in most of Jilin, Xinhua reported.
“Many drivers could not see my gestures because of the smog. I had to shout to let them know,” said a traffic policeman, surnamed Gao, at a viaduct on Guangfu Road in Changchun.
The bad weather also delayed trains and caused the closure of most of the highways in Jilin, Xinhua said.
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