republicworld– China’s capital and a wide swathe of the country’s north was enveloped Monday in the worst sandstorm in a decade, leading to the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
Beijing-based conservation expert Zhou Jinfeng said the sandstorm was caused by overnight winds from Mongolia and Inner Mongolia.
Traffic was snarled and more than 400 flights out of the capital’s two main airports were cancelled before noon. Skyscrapers in the center of Beijing nearly disappeared from sight amid the dust and sand.
Such storms used to occur regularly in the springtime as sand from western deserts blew east, affecting areas as far as northern Japan.
Massive planting of trees and bushes in fragile areas has reduced the storms’ intensity, but the expansion of cities and industries has put constant pressure on the environment throughout China.
The National Meteorological Center said the sand and dust would affect 12 provinces and regions from Xinjiang in the far northwest to Heilongjiang in the northeast and the eastern coastal port city of Tianjin.
It wasn’t clear if the storm was related to a recent general decline in air quality despite efforts to end Beijing’s choking smog.
“Together with the pandemic, that’s another big lesson we should take and we should change our behaviour,’ said Zhou.
The ruling Communist Party has pledged to reduce carbon emissions per unit of economic output by 18% over the next five years. Environmentalists say China needs to do more to reduce dependency on coal that has made it the world’s biggest emitter of climate changing gases.
