Air pollution in China

Tomasz Klech, who heads the air-monitoring lab at the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection (GIOS) in Warsaw. Photo: Maria Wilczek A very Polish smog

Atmospheric pollution has dropped significantly over the past week, according to the Environment Ministry's pollution counting network, with officials attributing the drop to the reduction of traffic on the roads amid the government's "Menoume Spiti" (We Stay at Home) campaign to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Construction activities at major infrastructure sites in Bangkok have been halted due to air pollution, according to the Nation newspaper.

Construction of skyscrapers, new road junctions and new subway lines has been halted for 72 hours, the release said.

Iranian authorities have ordered  several schools in in Tehran and several other cities in the country to be closed today because of the dangerous air pollution, health reports stated.

Tehran lay under a thick cloud of smog considered hazardous to health for several days now. Yesterday, the cloud could be seen from the valleys more than 20 kilometers north of the city.

Beijing declared its third major smog alert of 2018, and the second this month, just a day after being named the top performer among 28 Chinese cities that took special measures to rein in pollution.

Heavy smog in northern China yesterday caused hundreds of flights to be cancelled and highways to shut, disrupting the first day of the new year holiday. 

Large parts of the north were hit by hazardous smog in mid-December, leading authorities to order hundreds of factories to close and to restrict motorists to cut emissions. 

Beijing is to raise the thresholds for issuing its highest air pollution warnings, the state news agency Xinhua reported on Feb. 22, two months after acrid smog triggered the city's first ever "red alerts." 

China warned residents across a large part of its north on Dec. 18 to prepare for a wave of choking smog arriving over the weekend, the worst of which is expected over Beijing, prompting the capital to issue its second ever "red alert."

Beijing has upgraded its alert for air pollution from orange to red on Monday afternoon.

This is the first time the capital has issued a red alert. The red alert, which is the most serious warning on a four-tier system, means authorities have forecast more than three consecutive days of severe smog.

Beijing ordered hundreds of factories to shut and allowed children to skip school as choking smog reached over 25 times safe levels on Dec. 1, casting a cloud over China's participation in Paris climate talks.