Construction cranes are shrouded in smog in Beijing. Photo: Bloomberg
Residents say officials now rely on weather to control capital’s dire smog
What a difference a day makes. The arrival of strong winds overnight on Tuesday blew away much of the heavy smog that had choked Beijing for days, allowing the capital’s air quality to return to a healthy level within hours.
A cold front from the north reached the capital at about 11pm on Tuesday, and by midnight the concentration of PM2.5 particles, considered most dangerous to human health, had dropped to 22 – considered a healthy level – in the suburbs and 88 in the city. Residents woke up to a clear blue sky with cold, fresh air as the concentration of the fine particulates dropped to below 10 from more than 500 on Tuesday.
Internet users were quick to share pictures of the city’s clear skyline on social media while at the same time expressing in frustration that the capital was relying entirely on weather changes to fight the smog.
Officials, when questioned why the highest-level red pollution warning alert was not issued as the pollution index reached a hazardous level over the previous five days, explained that this was due to technological limitations.
Peng Yingdeng, a researcher at the National Engineering Research Centre for Urban Pollution Control, said air pollution had been dropping for three years, yet the weather – especially this year’s severe El Nino conditions – made the air quality worse. Beijing is prone to spells of low pressure that trap air pollutants closer to the ground.
Some questioned why a red alert, the highest level in a four-tier system, was not issued to help residents cope better. A red alert would force schools to shut down, cars to stay off the road on alternate days and construction projects halted.
The city’s Environmental Protection Administration has been under fire for issuing and maintaining only the orange alert even though air quality was so bad that readings were off the charts.
Unfavourable weather, together with coal-burning in Beijing’s suburban area and vehicle exhaust emissions, were to blame for the heavy smog, authorities said. (CTA: note that goods vehicles can only enter Beijing and other big Mainland cities after midnight)
According to Beijing Severe Air Pollution Contingency Plan, a red alert can only be issued by the Beijing Emergency Management Office after being approved by the city mayor. It should be issued 24 hours in advance if air quality is forecast to be severe, with the air quality index over 300, for 72 hours.
But Peng said it was not possible to forecast air pollution precisely for a period longer than three days, and the Beijing environmental watchdog was upgrading its air quality projection system at a cost of 30 million yuan to extend forecasts to five days.
When air quality plummeted last Friday, the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Centre forecast it to improve on Saturday. But the AQI nosedived on Sunday and continued to drop on Monday and Tuesday, an environmental protection Administration official told The Beijing News.
“But technical limitation is no excuse,” Peng said. “The local environmental protection authority could have warned people of the severity of the smog.”
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