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Due to heavy fog enveloping Henan, Shangdong, Beijing, Tianjin, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Hebei, the National Meteorological Center has set the yellow alert warning for some locations.
There are reportedly areas with less than a half-mile limited visibility. Ministry of Environmental Protection claims that the smog that first emerged from the beginning of winter has been largely caused by coal, vehicle emissions, and unfavorable weather.
Due to the lack of sunlight, Tiananmen Square's large LED screens have begun to broadcast videos of the sunrise to help citizens cope with the difficult weather. The LED screens were originally designed for advertising tourist attractions. To avoid the smell and odor of the smog, many commuters wore industrial strength face masks to lessen the irritations that come with the thick, gray haze. Some, like a traffic coordinator in Beijing named Zhang, have to,"drink more water to help my body discharge the toxins."
In one environmental report by Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center, the nation's capital had 58 days with "serious pollution" in 2013, which when averaged, is one in every 6-7 days.
To improve the air quality during the Beijing Olympics in 2012, hundreds of factories were shut down and 1 million cars were banned from use for two weeks before and during the event. On Wednesday, Shanghai also introduced similar policy to allow the shut off of schools and removal of certain cars from the road in order to reduce smog.
