October 21, 2013, 3:15 am
Harbin’s landmark San Sophia church was barely visible Monday as heavy pollution forced the closure of schools and highways.
Reuters
Harbin’s landmark San Sophia church was barely visible Monday as heavy pollution forced the closure of schools and highways.
Updated, 8:22 a.m. | School was canceled, traffic was nearly paralyzed and the airport was shut down in the northeast Chinese city of Harbin on Monday as off-the-charts pollution dropped visibility to less than 10 meters in parts of the provincial capital.
A dark, gray cloud that the local weather bureau described as “heavy fog” has shrouded the city of 10 million since Thursday, but the smoke thickened significantly on Sunday, soon after the government turned on the coal-powered municipal heating system for the winter.
“You can’t see your own fingers in front of you,” the city’s official news site explained helpfully. In the same vein, a resident of Harbin commented on Sina Weibo, the popular microblog platform, “You can hear the person you are talking to, but not see him.” Another resident added that he couldn’t see the person he was holding hands with.
The airport in Harbin said on its official microblog Monday morning that dozens of flights had been delayed or diverted due to the smog, which it said brought visibility down to about 100 meters at 1 p.m. In the early evening, it announced that all flights scheduled on Monday had been canceled.
The Harbin government reported an air quality index (AQI) score of 500, the highest possible reading, with some neighborhoods posting concentrations of PM2.5 — fine particulate matter that are 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller and especially harmful to health — as high as 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter, according to the China News Service.
(By comparison, the air quality index in New York was 41 on Monday morning.)
The Chinese government describes air with an AQI between 301 and 500 as “heavily polluted” and urges people to refrain from exercising outdoors; the elderly and other vulnerable populations are supposed to stay indoors entirely. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency uses a similar index that labels any reading between 301 and 500 as “hazardous.”
Both scales reach their limit at 500, leaving creative citizens of polluted cities to come up with their own labels when the air gets worse. Foreign residents in Beijing declared an “airpocalpyse” last January when the U.S. Embassy reported an AQI equivalent of 755, with a PM2.5 concentration of 866 micrograms per cubic meter. The World Health Organization has standards that judge a score above 500 to be more than 20 times the level of particulate matter in the air deemed safe.
On Monday, people in Harbin were covering their heads and mouths with scarves and masks to ward off the choking smell in the air. Despite government warnings to stay home, cars with headlights turned on were moving no faster than pedestrians and honking frequently as drivers struggled to see traffic lights meters away, the city’s official news site said.
At an emergency meeting called at 6 a.m., the authorities decided to close all schools and kindergartens, the report said. The local police also shut several highways at 7 a.m., but not before the smog caused two pile-ups, which left one truck driver injured, the official Xinhua news agency reported. (Nearby Jilin Province also reported 14 road accidents on Sunday night; the authorities there issued a red alert for pollution Monday morning.)
The pollution in Harbin has caused a 30 percent surge in hospital admissions of patients with respiratory problems, according to the local news media. Residents have been told by doctors to wear masks and eat pears, a fruit commonly believed in northern China to help heal lungs.
The city weather bureau blamed the pollution on three factors: a lack of wind; local farms burning corn leaves and stalks after the harvest; and the start of the municipal central heating system, which provides heat to millions of homes and offices and relies on large coal-burning boilers across the city.
The system pumps hot water into radiators and is supposed to heat residences to at least 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit). But Harbin, located not far from the Russian border in Heilongjiang Province, is one of China’s coldest cities, and its coal-dependent heating system means it must choose each year between heat and clean air.
Harbin has been battling air pollution for years, destroying hundreds of smaller boilers, banning the use of high-sulfur coal, and adopting cleaner fuel standards for cars. On Monday, the city dispatched environmental protection personnel to conduct inspections of factory smokestacks, traffic police to perform spot checks of motor vehicle emissions, and village officials to stop farmers from burning corn waste.
Temperatures are forecast to drop to the freezing point this week, but the local weather bureau said the cold front could also bring rain that could clear out some of the pollution.
In the meantime, residents were left comparing the air to something out of a horror film. Said an Internet user going by the screen name Han Doudou, “If you think this is the movie set for ‘Silent Hill,’ ‘Resident Evil’ or ‘The Walking Dead,’ you are wrong — this is Harbin.”
Amy Qin contributed research.
