Thick smog enveloped northeast China's Harbin City for a third day yesterday, with schools and a regional airport shut and poor visibility forcing ground transport to a halt in places.

Thick smog enveloped northeast China's Harbin City for a third day yesterday. [File photo]

Images from Harbin, with more than 10 million people and the host of a popular annual ice festival, showed roads shrouded in smog, with visibility in some areas reduced to 20 meters.

More than 250 flights were canceled on Monday.

Air pollution levels were easing yesterday evening but remained as much as 15 times the levels deemed safe by the World Health Organization.

Figures from monitoring stations showed that concentrations of PM2.5, the tiny airborne particles considered most harmful to health, averaged 247 micrograms per cubic meter in the city, with one station showing 367.

That figure was down from yesterday morning’s level of 822 micrograms per cubic meter and Monday’s level of 1,000. The WHO’s recommended standard is 25.

The overall air quality index had improved to a measure of 297, or “heavily polluted.” Earlier yesterday, the figure exceeded 500, the highest level on the Chinese scale.

Residents described a smog that began choking people as much as a week ago but worsened considerably on Sunday night.

“You could feel the burning smell in the air, and on the second day the thick fog just blocked your way, keeping you from seeing anything,” said Song Ting, a 21-year-old student in Harbin. “It’s still disgusting.”

Zhao Yao, a 25-year-old IT engineer, said: “You feel sick when you breathe. You can’t see many people on the street now, and some people wear three masks when going out.”

The smog in Harbin came as it activated its public heating system before the icy winter. It is China’s latest major pollution-related episode.

In January, thick smog blanketed Beijing, with similar PM2.5 levels to Harbin this week, garnering headlines, as well as a nickname “airpocalypse” in news reports around the globe.

At the time Harbin escaped the worst of the pollution, but huge areas of northern China have been shrouded by smog on various occasions this year.

Pollution from rapid development and heavy coal use plagues wide swathes of China, prompting public criticism and pledges from the government to make improvements.

Last Friday, American jazz singer Patti Austin canceled a scheduled concert at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing due to a “severe asthma attack” after arriving in the smog-ridden capital, she said on her website.

Seventy of the 74 monitored Chinese cities nationwide suffered from air pollution in the third quarter of this year, the state environmental watchdog announced yesterday.

Fifteen cities had less than 50 percent of the 92 days in the third quarter failing to meet the standards set by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The 10 cities with the most serious problems are Xingtai, Shijiazhuang, Tangshan, Handan, Jinan, Hengshui, Tianjin, Baoding, Zhengzhou and Langfang, most of them near Beijing.

Air pollution in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei was worse than other parts of the country during the three months. The 13 monitored cities in the region had on average 62.5 percent, or about 58 days, failing to meet the required standards, while the national average stood at around 29 days.

Air quality in all 74 cities met the standard in 68.9 percent, or on 63 days, up 6.4 percentage points from the previous quarter.

East China’s Yangtze River Delta and south China’s Pearl River Delta had more clear days than other parts of the country.

Caught in wrong turn

Bus No. 88, the first one to hit the road in foggy Harbin on Monday at around 5:30am, took six hours to reach its terminal — three hours more than usual.

Bus passengers sensed something was wrong and discovered that the driver was driving in the wrong direction, the Modern Evening News reported yesterday.

“I preferred to wait for the smog to disperse, but some of the passengers said they were in a hurry. They said they could recognize the roads,” the driver said.

Another bus went in a circle around a government building.

Almost every buses were running around 30 minutes late.

Visibility in some downtown areas was less than 20 meters.

Emergency measures

The Beijing city government adopted an emergency plan yesterday to respond to the city’s heavy air pollution.

As per the plan, drivers in the city will only be allowed to use their cars every other day when a red alert, the highest warning level, is issued for air pollution.

Cars with odd and even-numbered license plates will be allowed on roads on alternate days. About 30 percent of government cars will be banned from the streets.

Fang Li, deputy chief of the city’s environmental protection bureau, said they would try its best to issue warnings 24 hours before heavy air pollution days. Vehicles have been a major contributor to Beijing’s smog.

Flights affected

Nearly all flights from Shanghai to Harbin and other northeastern cities like Shenyang and Changchun were disrupted.

More than 20 flights from Pudong International Airport and another two from Hongqiao to Harbin were canceled yesterday. Only two flights managed to take off for Harbin in the morning.

Another 10 flights were canceled between Shanghai and Shenyang in Liaoning Province and dozens others to and from Changchun in Jilin Province.

With Harbin airport almost inaccessible for both landings and takeoffs, China Southern, China Eastern, Shanghai Airlines, Juneyao and Spring Airlines all canceled flights. Some of them hope to return to normal today.