High smog alert likely as pollution goes off the charts in Beijing, Hebei

[SoleSurvivor]

High smog alert likely as pollution goes off the charts in Beijing, Hebei

High alert likely with smog forecast to blanket Beijing until Wednesday

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 22 November, 2014, 4:27am
UPDATED : Saturday, 22 November, 2014, 4:27am

Li Jing [email protected]

A man in a mask walks in smoggy Shenyang, Liaoning province, where the pollution index was a hazardous 303 last night. Photo: Xinhua

Only one thing will be clear in Beijing this weekend - and it won't be the skies. More smog is on the way after pollution exceeded the maximum reading on the Air Quality Index in parts of the capital and 10 Hebei cities on Thursday and yesterday.

The dismal results came less than a fortnight after the capital experienced "Apec blue" skies during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Beijing is expected to be blanketed in smog from today to Wednesday, which could trigger an orange alert, the second-highest alert for air pollution, the environment ministry said.

While local governments said the onset of winter heating was to blame, others said it was payback as hundreds of factories ordered shut during the summit sought to make up for lost production time.

In Xinji , a leather and fur manufacturing hub in Hebei, one reason the air quality index rose above the 500 maximum was high levels of PM2.5 - the tiny particles most damaging to health - which hit 825 micrograms per cubic metre at about 11am yesterday, according to a city monitoring station. That is 10 times higher than the World Health Organisation's safe limit.

Other Hebei cities - including Langfang , Xingtai , Tangshan and Shijiazhuang - saw PM2.5 levels rise to about 500 micrograms per cubic metre around noon yesterday.

Air pollution was also off the charts at several monitoring stations in eastern and southern parts of Beijing on Thursday night and yesterday morning, with residents complaining of a pungent odour.

Hebei authorities blamed the smog on poor weather and an increase in the use of coal at the start of the heating season, the China News Service reported.

But one Beijing microblogger was not convinced. "It seems one province is getting frantic to make up for its losses by switching all the factories on," the blogger wrote, posting a graphic showing PM2.5 levels surging above 500 across Hebei on Thursday night.

That post drew intense criticism from Hebei residents, who blamed Beijing for putting the squeeze on its neighbours and leaving the province little choice but to pursue heavy industries.

Drivers use their lights in heavy smog in Shenyang in the northeast. Photo: Xinhua

The Lange Iron and Steel Research Centre, a Beijing-based consultancy, said in a report yesterday that iron and steel companies in Hebei would "gear up their production until the end of this year to compensate for losses", without elaborating.

Ma Jun, head of environmental group the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said that even though a lack of data made it difficult to say for sure that companies had stepped up output, many factories in the region were polluting far beyond the national limits. "The curbs only went into effect during Apec because they were 'political assignments', but everything is back to normal now," Ma said.

He said that without political pressure, local authorities were unlikely to activate stringent emergency pollution control measures next week.