{"id":140817,"date":"2016-12-22T00:30:16","date_gmt":"2016-12-22T00:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/red-alert-smog-in-china-will-soon-clear-state-media-say\/"},"modified":"2016-12-22T00:30:16","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T00:30:16","slug":"red-alert-smog-in-china-will-soon-clear-state-media-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/red-alert-smog-in-china-will-soon-clear-state-media-say\/","title":{"rendered":""Red alert" smog in China will soon clear, state media say"},"content":{"rendered":"

BEIJING —<\/strong> The dense smog that has smothered much of China for five days may finally soon clear, forecasters and state media said Wednesday, giving relief to hundreds of millions of people breathing dangerously polluted air and struggling under the government\u2019s emergency measures. <\/p>\n

\t \tThe national weather authority forecast that nighttime winds will push out much of the pollution that has left Beijing and dozens of other cities under a five-day \u201cred alert<\/a>,\u201d the highest level in China\u2019s four-tiered warning system. Schools were closed, flights canceled and factories and highways shut down in attempts to improve the air quality. But the prolonged red alert disrupted the lives of many in Beijing\u2019s capital. <\/p>\n

\"Dense<\/span>
\n CBS This Morning<\/span><\/p>\n

Dense smog smothers parts of China<\/h3>\n

\n Millions of people are forced to wear masks or stay indoors, as thick, heavy smog smothers parts of China. A “red alert” for pollution has been i…\n <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

A grandmother and her grandson ventured outside their home on Wednesday for the first time in several days. The boy had stayed home from school since Monday and was getting bored inside, said the woman, who would only give her surname of Yang. \u201cThe pollution is rather scary, so we don\u2019t go out or go very far,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\t \tBy the calculations of Greenpeace East Asia, the red alert affects 460 million people, with about 200 million people living in areas where the air was polluted more than 10 times above the guideline set by the World Health Organization. <\/p>\n

\t \tBeijing\u2019s air pollution readings remained many times above safe levels. WHO designates the safe level of PM2.5, the tiny, poisonous particles that are easily inhaled and damage lung tissue, at 25 micrograms per cubic meter. Those readings exceeded 400 throughout Beijing, with nearby cities worse, on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

\t \tChina has long had some of the worst air in the world, blamed on its reliance on coal and a surplus of older, less efficient cars. It has set pollution reduction goals, but also has plans to increase coal mining capacity and eased caps on production when faced with rising energy prices. <\/p>\n

\"Beijing<\/span>
\n

Beijing pollution \u2013 through a lens, darkly<\/h3>\n

\n As Beijing issued its first pollution “red alert” the extreme health and environmental impact is evident in these before and after images of the …\n <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Ordinary Chinese pay close attention to air pollution readings and government statements on smog, often with deep skepticism. <\/p>\n

\t \tChina\u2019s Ministry of Environmental Protection acknowledged this week that its inspectors found some factories violating anti-pollution edicts. And despite announcements of school closings in areas under red alerts, photos shared widely on Chinese social media showed students in Henan province hunched over their desks taking an exam while shrouded in a gray haze. State media reported the school principal was suspended \u201cfor causing a bad impact on society.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t \tThe shutdown of hundreds of construction sites – and a ban in some parts of Beijing on spray painting – has affected the thousands of migrants from China\u2019s provinces who come to the capital seeking menial work. <\/p>\n

\t \t\u201cWe have stopped for five days now,\u201d said one migrant worker from Henan province who gave his surname of Geng. \u201cWe haven\u2019t earned a penny. We live off our own savings. We spend 30 RMB (about $4.30) on living expenses every day that we don\u2019t work.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIJING — The dense smog that has smothered much of China for five days may finally soon clear, forecasters and state media said Wednesday, giving relief to hundreds of millions of people breathing dangerously polluted air and struggling under the government\u2019s emergency measures. The national weather authority forecast that nighttime winds will push out much Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}