Oman Daily Observer

Choking smog clears from northern China

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BEIJING: Smoggy skies turned clear in parts of China on Thursday after nearly a full week of severe pollution which saw scores of flights cancelled and forced the closure of schools in some areas. The crisis spurred a call by Chinese President Xi Jinping for the country to develop clean energy sources during a meeting of a high-level government body on Wednesday.

Xi urged northern China to substitute natural gas and electricit­y for coal to heat buildings during the winter in order to reduce smog, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

More than 20 cities in the country’s northeast, including Beijing, had been under a pollution “red alert” — the highest of a four-tiered, colour-coded warning system — until Thursday. Some 460 million people were affected by the blanket of smog, according to environmen­tal group Greenpeace — more than the entire population of the US.

Shijiazhua­ng, the capital of Hebei province, was the city hardest hit on Wednesday, with elementary schools and kindergart­ens closed, some factories shuttered, and cars taken off the roads. Hundreds of flights in the region were also cancelled and road and rail transport ground to a halt under the low visibility conditions.

Levels of PM 10 — a measure of larger particulat­es in the atmosphere — were literally off the charts in Shijiazhua­ng, repeatedly maxing out at 999. Levels of the smaller PM 2.5 particles, tiny enough to be absorbed into the bloodstrea­m and thought to be a major contributo­r to respirator­y and cardiovasc­ular disease, reached more than 29 times the World Health Organizati­on’s daily recommende­d maximum.

The alerts in the capital and elsewhere were lifted in the early hours on Thursday, as a cold wind from the northwest arrived to blow away the toxic pollution.

Within hours, PM 2.5 levels in Beijing dropped by some 90 per cent. Most of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the burning of coal for electricit­y and heating — particular­ly when demand peaks in winter.

 ?? Reuters ?? A man holds a child at the Houhai area as blue sky returns after winds dispelled dangerousl­y high levels of air pollution in Beijing on Thursday.
Reuters A man holds a child at the Houhai area as blue sky returns after winds dispelled dangerousl­y high levels of air pollution in Beijing on Thursday.

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