Beijing chokes on yellow dust during the biggest sandstorm in nearly a decade

Beijing chokes on yellow dust during the biggest sandstorm in nearly a decade

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Photos of Beijing, home to 21.7 million residents, show skyscrapers and cars shrouded in dense fog, with air quality indexes registering a “risk” rating and authorities advising residents to stay home.

Many passengers continued to fight the elements, however, walking and cycling through strong sand winds. Visibility was so poor in some parts of the city that drivers needed to turn on their headlights even in the middle of the day.

“In some places, there are severe sandstorms with visibility of less than 500 meters (1,640 feet),” said the China Meteorological Administration in a statement on Monday. “This is also the strongest sand and dust climate that has affected China in almost 10 years.”

Air quality in Beijing was already poor, due to high levels of pollution. When the sandstorm hit, the city’s air quality dropped to dangerous levels, according to the World Air Quality Index.

A woman rides a bicycle along a street during a sandstorm in Beijing on March 15.

The index measures the concentration of different pollutants in the air – the most important being PM 2.5. This harmful microscopic particulate material is less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter and is considered particularly dangerous, as it can lodge deeply in the lungs and pass to other organs and the bloodstream.

Beijing measured a maximum of 655 micrograms per cubic meter on Monday. The World Health Organization considers anything over 25 to be unsafe.

The sandstorm originated in Mongolia, where six people died and 81 are missing, according to Chinese state agency The Paper.

From Mongolia, the sandstorm gradually moved south. Beijing saw concentrations of the largest PM 10 particles exceed 8,100 micrograms per cubic meter, according to the city’s environmental monitoring center, which prompted the Central Meteorological Observatory to issue a yellow alert for sandstorms – the second level in a weather alert with color-coded four-layer system.

Authorities advised the public to avoid leaving the house if possible, and the Beijing Municipal Education Commission asked schools and educational committees on Monday to suspend outdoor activities.

Buildings in Beijing's central business district during a sandstorm on March 15.
Dust storms used to be a regular occurrence in the spring. In the past decades, every May has seen at least two rounds of sandstorms, according to state news agency Xinhua. The frequency and severity of sandstorms was partly due to drought, increasing population pressure and weak progress in revegetation, which caused the rapid desertification of land in the north and northwest.

But sandstorms have subsided dramatically; the annual number of days impacted by the sandstorm in Beijing fell from a peak of 26 in the 1950s to just three days after 2010, Xinhua reported.

Since 2000, the Chinese government has invested billions of dollars in preventing sandstorms. The authorities launched several ecological and reforestation projects, and installed satellites to monitor sandstorms and alert weather agencies in advance.

Sandstorms also hit northern Hebei and Shanxi provinces, western Gansu and central and western Inner Mongolia. on Monday, he told Xinhua. Other parts of the country, including northern Xinjiang, are experiencing high levels of gusts. Sandstorms are expected to last until Tuesday.

Mongolia, which lies to the north of mainland China, is experiencing strong cyclones, the meteorological administration said. Mongolian sand and dust moved east and south over northern China, carried by high cold pressure at the back of the cyclone.

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