Don't Stay Outside: Air Pollution in Beijing Reaches Freakish Levels

The pollution. (Owen/Global Voices Online)

Beijing is always polluted, but this time a 4-day wave of heavy smog hit China’s capital. The result was murky and very obvious to the naked eye.

State media told people to stay inside, while attributing the freakish haze to “weather conditions.”

A professor quoted by the media said the mortality rate would increae by about 10 percent, but if “specific populations” don’t go outside for a long time, “the actual harm will not be great.”

Masks are not useful, he added.

Pollution readings went off the charts just over a week ago. Experts say air pollution indexed over 500 is dangerous. The reading on Jan. 12 was above 700. The Beijing Meteorological Bureau issed an orange warning, the highest ever, the next day.

Some context from Global Voices Online:

“Beijing installed 35 PM 2.5 monitoring stations at the end of last year in a bid to better inform citizens on pollution levels. A lack of wind and explosive growth of automobiles over the years in the city have always been cited by state media as reasons for pollution. International press blames the problem on the government’s endless pursuit of economic growth and its ignorance over environmental degradation.”

Global Voices translates reactions from Chinese people venting on China’s Sina Weibo, Twitter-like service. Here are several:

Jason: Even though they know the air is heavily polluted, the streets and lanes, big and small have been packed with many people. Different dialects can be heard in the subway, the talks have basically been –the severity of air pollution, they shouldn’t have come, Beijing becoming worse, and (people) are becoming prone to diseases, etc.

Hi, guys, perhaps you should go back to contribute to your hometown, leave the capital Beijing to us!

黄金神棍: My daughter turned on the iPad and saw the pollution index in the weather report. She said, Beijing is heavily polluted~ I said yes, are you gonna go back? She said no and asked me why people want to stay there? I said people make a lot of money there, there are also high rises. She said can sickness be healed after they make money? I didn’t know how to respond. She said they are really ill…. Sometimes, children are wiser than adults!

颜强发表的微博: Smoggy city Beijing. The British will feel a sense of history if they saw Beijing on Jan 12, 2013, it would be like traveling back to London 1945. 

After more than week of dangerous levels of pollution, snow lowered the levels to an average of 100, according to NTD Television.