The National Day 'golden week' holiday ushered in the predicted post-Olympic deterioration in air quality, with the capital suffering four consecutive days of 'light air pollution' up to yesterday.
Smog, the hallmark of bad air quality, has hovered above Beijing since Tuesday, the second day of the holiday, and there is little hope of the pollution clearing any time soon because many of the official measures put in place to combat air pollution ended with the Paralympics.
The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said the Air Pollution Index stood at 106 on Tuesday, 104 on Wednesday and 126 on Thursday before dropping back to 108 yesterday. Any number higher than 100 is considered light pollution and can cause breathing problems.
By comparison, the index during the August-September Olympic and Paralympic period was below 50 on 10 of the 17 days of the Olympics and between 50 and 100 on the others.
For the 12 days of the Paralympics last month, the Air Pollution Index was below 50 on two days and between 50 and 100 on the others.
Air quality during the Olympics was aided by a series of government orders that shut down work at construction sites, took about half of the vehicles off the street and stopped production at polluting factories in and around Beijing.
But these measures ended with the conclusion of the Olympics, clearing the way for a return to smoggy skies.
