The sky over Beijing turned yellow and air pollution rose to severe levels as a giant cloud of sand and dust particles rolled toward the city, propelled by strong winds from northern China.
Beijing’s air quality index rose to 324 at 16:00 local time (08:00 GMT) on Thursday, mainly due to larger particles of sand and dust, city officials said.
It got worse in the evening, surpassing 1,300 in some parts of the city, according to Swiss app IQAir.
The particles originated in Mongolia and the Inner Mongolia region of China, and strong winds are expected to carry pollutants to central and eastern China on Friday, the China Meteorological Administration said.
The amount of sand in the air was less than two sandstorms in northern China last month, but the wind speed was higher, allowing dusty weather to travel faster and farther. , according to the weather administration.
“I don’t feel well. We’ve had several dust storms this year,” said Gary Zi, a 48-year-old Beijing resident who works in the financial sector.
“The (air) quality is much worse than in previous years,” he added. “Breathing becomes difficult. The sand gets into your eyes and nose.”
China normally blames the Gobi Desert of Mongolia for its annual sandstorms.
Delegates from China’s arid Gansu region said in a proposal to parliament last month that more than half of the dust storms that fall on China each year come from abroad, mostly from southern Mongolia.
Beijing has been planting millions of trees along its border to block sandstorms, part of a project known as the “Great Green Wall.”
“I think it’s all about climate change,” another Beijing resident said as he dusted his motorcycle near the China World Trade Center, giving only his last name, Xie. “(We) can’t do much about it.”
Our standards: the principles of trust of Thomson Reuters.