China’s capital woke up to a yellow sky on Monday when the biggest sandstorm the country has seen in a decade swept through the city, sparking new fears about health.
Thick brown dust enveloped Beijing’s iconic landmarks, including the Forbidden City, and downtown skyscrapers sometimes disappeared from view, surrounded by clouds of sand.
Visibility in the capital has been reduced to less than 1,000 meters (3,300 feet), reported the Chinese English news agency CGTN, forcing residents to dare to leave the house to wear makeshift hats to protect their faces.
Traffic increased and more than 400 flights leaving the capital’s two main airports were canceled, the Associated Press reported.
The Beijing Meteorological Observatory has warned that the elderly, children and people with respiratory problems must remain indoors. According to the report, city dwellers should wear masks, gauze or other dustproof products when leaving and washing their faces when they return home.
Schools were also instructed to suspend all outdoor activities.
“It feels like the end of the world,” Flora Zou, 25, a Beijing-based fashion worker, told Reuters. “In that kind of climate, I really don’t want to be out and about.”
The National Meteorological Center of China issued a yellow alert early Monday, saying that sand and dust from neighboring Mongolia would affect 12 provinces and regions in the north, from Xinjiang in the far northwest to Heilongjiang in the northeast and the capital Beijing.
“This is the most intense sandstorm in China in the past 10 years, and the area affected by the sandstorm is also the most extensive in the past decade,” the center said in a memo on its website.
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Sandstorms are expected to move south towards the Yangtze River Delta and are expected to disappear on Wednesday, China’s Environment Ministry said.
Beijing typically faces sandstorms in March and April due to its proximity to the huge Gobi desert, as well as deforestation and soil erosion across northern China.
China has tried to reforest and restore the region’s ecology to limit the amount of sand that is thrown into the capital.
Beijing planted the so-called “big green wall” of trees to trap dust and also tried to create air corridors that channel the wind and allow sand and other pollutants to pass more quickly.
The city and neighboring regions have also suffered from relatively high levels of pollution in recent weeks.
Yuliya Talmazan reported from London, Nicole Yang from Hong Kong.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed.