Thick Blanket of Gray Smog Covers Beijing

Car travels, fireworks and outdoor barbecuing were banned in Beijing after a thick blanket of gray smog covered the entire Chinese capital. Experts said the same situation might stretch entire week.

The local environmental protection bureau said they had to immediately issue a red alert in the city to warn people about the dangerous effects of the gray smog in the city.

This was for the very first time that such an alarm has been raised to its highest level since the introduction of an emergency air-pollution response system in 2013.

A picture of the iconic Bird’s Nest stadium was also released by the state-run Xinhua News Agency showing the stadium entirely covered in a curtain of gray smog.

According to data on the website of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center, concentrations of PM2.5, a particulate which is considered as most dangerous to health, was reported to be 173 micrograms per cubic meter in the past 24 hours near Tiananmen Square in the center of the capital.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has also cautioned that more than 24 hours of exposure to PM2.5 at concentrations higher than 25 is very harmful for health.

The city officials said that red alert came into effect on Tuesday from 7 a.m. and will continue till noon on Thursday, according to a higher than 25.

City officials have to face high levels of criticism for not taking appropriate action sooner. Some people even raised question that why did the government earlier issued the orange warning, the second highest warning, and not the red warning when the situation was critical.