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April 16, 2015

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Sandstorm turns northern skies yellow

A SANDSTORM swept large swathes of north China yesterday, including Beijing, causing the skies to turn yellow.

In some areas of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, visibility was reduced to less than 300 meters, weather officials said.

The storm, with gales reaching speeds of up to 75 kilometers per hour, began to batter the capital last night with pedestrians in the downtown area wearing masks or using hands, napkins and scarves to cover their noses.

The Beijing Meteorological Station upgraded its weather alert from blue to yellow, forecasting visibility of less than 1,000 meters.

The storm caused serious air pollution. A number of sites showed PM10 readings of 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter yesterday evening, according to the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center.

The National Meteorological Center forecast on Tuesday that parts of Beijing, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Tianjin, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei and Jilin would be affected by the sandstorm throughout yesterday.

The center also forecast that a strong cold front would sweep north China, including areas along the Yellow and Huaihe rivers, bringing temperatures down by up to 12 degrees Celsius.




 

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