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Police officers wearing face masks patrol Tian'anmen Square in Beijing on Wednesday. Zou Hong / China Daily
Editor's note: China Daily reporters Zheng Xin and Zhang Yue find out how residents in the capital coped with the thick smog over the past week.
"When the smog hit the city last Thursday, I never thought it would last this long," said Cai Yunfen, a 29-year-old housewife in Beijing.
"We first thought the hazy air would just linger for one or two days, and the blue sky will come back with a gust of wind or cold air, but it persisted for a whole week."
Cai said she stayed indoors with her 4-month-old baby for seven days in a row. She ran the air purifiers all day long for cleaner air inside the apartment.
"We dare not open the window for a change of air, it's like letting in pure dust and pollution."
The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau issued a yellow alert on air pollution on Feb 20, and then upgraded it to orange the next day. The air quality indexes for the past seven days were all above 300, with the major pollutants being particulate matter, which is very harmful to people's hearts and lungs, especially seniors and young children.
According to Zhang Dawei, head of the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center, the smog since last Thursday is the longest in duration since the capital started monitoring PM 2.5 - particulate matter with a diameter smaller than 2.5 micrometers.
The orange alert for heavy air pollution will be lifted at midnight on Thursday as a strong cold front is expected to disperse the weeklong smog, according to the bureau.
"The cold front, which is expected to reach Beijing on Wednesday night, will bring an average precipitation of 1 to 2 millimeters, and then strong winds, dispersing the heavy smog," said Zhang Linna, chief weather forecaster at Beijing Meteorological Station.
Sanitation worker
"People keep telling me that cleaning up the streets on such hazy days is no good for my lungs, but I've got no other options," said Yang Wanli, a 43-year-old Beijing sanitation worker from Gansu province.
Yang has been cleaning the streets of Beijing for six years since he arrived in 2008.
"We are given some masks these days, but very few people are wearing them because it's really difficult to breathe with a mask on when you sweep the roads," he said. "I've had a sore throat lately, possibly because of the smog, but no one from the sanitation team has yet taken a sick leave."
Yang said he once thought of job hopping to find work that both feeds his family and poses no threat to his health, but considering his poor education and lack of skills, it came to nothing.
"I'm grateful to have a job," he said.
"We are kind of immune to the smog already, as sweeping the dust even without smog is no good for the health," he said. "All that I ask for is fewer vehicles and less trash on the streets."
Air purifier sales
"The smog blanketing swaths of China is bad news, and good too," said Li Cong, an air purifier sales agent in Beijing.
"The biggest problem is the supply shortage of air purifiers, not a lack of customers," he said. "The cheapest unit sells for 3,590 yuan ($590), but we are still running out of stock two days a week."
Li said he has received many requests for consulting and orders for the air purifiers during the past few days, mostly from families with senior citizens, kids and pregnant women.
The soaring demand for cleaner air has made air purifiers popular in many cities, and many companies have seen huge jumps in sales recently.
Hospitals
The number of patients in respiratory departments at major Beijing hospitals has increased dramatically in the past week.
According to Beijing Morning News, patient numbers at major Beijing hospitals, such as Beijing Chaoyang Hospital and China-Japan Friendship Hospital, rose by at least 20 percent over the weekend. Patients complaining of asthma and emphysema flare-ups rose by almost 50 percent.
Legal Evening News reported on Sunday that by 9:30 am, eight out of every 10 patients in the respiratory care department of Peking University People's Hospital had problems related to asthma or emphysema. Tan Xingyu, a doctor in the department, said these patients were extremely vulnerable in smog.
Schools
Richard Liu, 44, a Canadian marketing manager and Beijing resident for 22 years, was angry with his daughters on Wednesday morning when he found out they went to school without their masks.
"The kids hate wearing masks," said the 44-year-old. "They find it uncomfortable and have not gotten used to wearing it. I know that. But I get very concerned when they go out without any protection in this kind of smog."
Since 2010, Liu and his family have bought three air purifiers for their apartment, each worth 3,000 yuan ($490), and he said they were working overtime in the past week. His two daughters study at the Western Academy of Beijing, in Chaoyang district.
Huang Xiaoping, 50, who teaches the first grade at the Primary School Attached to Peking University, said her students' parents bought two air purifiers for the classroom in September, at a cost of about 2,000 yuan ($329) apiece.
"It feels much better with an air purifier in the classroom. The air is better in the classroom than in the corridor," Huang said.
Beijing escape
"It's my second year in Beijing and possibly my last," said Yao Fan, a 27-year-old counselor working in the Chaoyang district.
"I used to ride a bicycle to work every day for exercise and convenience. But I got nothing but shortness of breath and a sore throat."
The city is less and less fit for habitation, he said.
Yao said he was more inclined, after seven straight days of hazardous air pollution, to give up career development and his home in Beijing.
"I came to the city directly after graduation from a university in the United States and was ready to embrace the business opportunities and challenges," he said. "But ahead of all these interests, the smog chokes me badly."
Yao said he was considering leaving Beijing and going to the southern parts of China or his hometown in Chongqing.
"At least there's blue sky there," he said.
Beijing's air quality index
Daily ceiling air quality index Feb 20-26
Feb 20
yellow alert, with a ceiling Air Quality Index of 331 in Fengtai district and PM 2.5 as the major pollutant
Feb 21
orange alert, with a ceiling AQI of 363 in Tongzhou district and PM 2.5 as the major pollutant
Feb 22
orange alert, with a ceiling AQI of 346 in Fengtai district and PM 2.5 as the major pollutant
Feb 23
orange alert, with a ceiling AQI of 323 in Pinggu district and PM 2.5 as the major pollutant
Feb 24
orange alert, with a ceiling AQI of 364 in Tongzhou district and PM 2.5 as the major pollutant
Feb 25
orange alert, with a ceiling AQI of 484 in Fengtai district and PM 2.5 as the major pollutant
Feb 26
orange alert (AQI figures were not released by press time)
Under the emergency plan the capital issued in October, Beijing's issues a red alert for "extreme pollution", orange alert for "severe pollution", yellow alert for "serious pollution" and blue alert for "pollution".
For severe pollution, the daily average measurement of fine particulate matter stands at 300 to 500 micrograms per cubic meter. For serious pollution, it stands at 201 to 300 micrograms per cu m.
Source: Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau
Contact the writers at zhengxin@chinadaily.com.cn and zhangyue@chinadaily.com.cn
