'Severe' pollution recorded as smog shrouds Beijing
High levels of minute cancer-causing particles noted at monitoring stations throughout Beijing
High levels of tiny airborne particles were recorded at Beijing's 35 pollution-monitoring stations yesterday as the capital was blanketed by heavy smog on the first working day after the eight-day National Day holiday.
Beijing's environmental authority said on Saturday that the city had completed upgrading the monitoring network so that it could give a more accurate measure of the city's air quality, with all 35 stations now releasing real-time data on cancer-causing respirable suspended particulates - known as PM 2.5.
The monitors, scattered in central Beijing and its suburbs, will run for a three-month trial, before the city's environmental authority formally begins using PM2.5 as a gauge of the city's air quality, rather than the larger particles it currently measures.
The smaller particles are considered more critical because they can embed themselves deep in the lungs and the bloodstream.
Concentrations of PM2.5 reached 274 micrograms per cubic metre at 6pm yesterday, with air quality officially rated "severely polluted".
Pedestrians were seen wearing masks for protection from the choking smog, which reduced visibility in the south of the city to about one kilometre.