Whenever Beijing is shrouded in choking smog, photos taken two years ago in the city of Qianan, about 220km southeast of the capital, re-emerge online. The pictures , cited by social media users as the “origin of the smog”, were taken by freelance photographer Lu Guang for Greenpeace. They show dozens of huge chimneys belching out thick smoke day and night, painting the sky a dismal grey, and villagers living in the nearby village of Songting dying from the effects of air and water pollution. The smoke is all black, turning daylight into night Songting villager First published in December 2014, they provided telling evidence of the way unchecked emissions of pollutants from iron and steel plants were devouring the blue skies and damaging public health in the heart of China’s rust-belt Hebei province. Since the photos were taken, the central and local governments have vowed to cut overcapacity in the bloated steel sector and address the area’s notorious smog problem. Yet two years on, production and pollution at a dozen of steel mills in Qianan looks much the same, the South China Morning Post discovered on a recent visit to the city. Plumes of steam and bluish smoke were clearly visible when approaching the plant of private steel producer Jiujiang Wire, emerging continually from a small forest of chimneys. Although the sky was blue, because, in the language of weather forecasts, the conditions were “favourable for dispersing pollutants”, the lower layer of air looked dusty. A vehicle was covered in a thin layer of tiny, sparkling metal particles after driving around for just a few hours. Nearby were the plants of Hebei Shougang Qianan Iron and Steel, built in 2003 after Beijing-based steel giant Shougang was ordered out of the capital to reduce pollution ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games, and Songting Iron and Steel. Quick fixes, empty promises and breathtaking inaction: how China has responded to its smog problem By the look of the chimneys, only Songting was not in full production. Mainland media reports have said the company was one of those hit hardest by a fall in the price of steel last year and a major target of a government campaign to cut steel output earlier this year. All three plants had tight security, and one gatekeeper tried to stop a Post photographer from taking photographs of the company’s gates and chimneys. On a small hill behind the Songting plant, the Post team was stopped by three unidentified men while taking photographs of the factories and their emissions. They said they owned the hill and were operating an iron ore mine there without the proper registration. They would not let the Post team leave until all the photos featuring chimneys taken earlier that morning were erased. Qianan, administered by the city of Tangshan, sits on one of China’s four major iron ore reserves – a deposit of about 5 billion tonnes. Over the past decade it has developed into a major steel manufacturing base, with an annual iron and steel production capacity of 40 million tonnes. That’s seen its gross domestic product climb to more than 100 billion yuan, making it one of China’s richest county-level cities. Hundreds of flights cancelled in Beijing as thick smog lays siege to capital The city is also an epitome of Hebei, which produces about a quarter of China’s steel. Earlier this year, Hebei was ordered to cut about 15 million tonnes of steel capacity this year, as the central government unveiled plans to reduce nationwide capacity by 100 million to 150 million tonnes in five years. While Jiujiang Wire employs more than 10,000 workers, the pollution its plant produces has helped make life in nearby villages unbearable. In Songting village, tucked between Jiujiang, Shougang Qianan and a coal chemical plant, a 57-year-old man, surnamed Liu, said the pollution was so bad that some villagers had travelled to Beijing to lodge a complaint with the central authorities. But when they arrived in the capital they received phone calls from the village committee, promising the air pollution problem would be solved. He refused to give his full name, saying “people talking to the media have been questioned by police”. “Jiujiang is so well connected that no complaints or media reports could stop its pollution,” he said, adding that pollution levels tended to peak late at night and on weekends, when the local authorities were off work. “The smoke is all black, turning daylight into night,” he said. “It’s so irritating that it hurts to open your eyes.” A factory that supplies coking coal to steel mills sits only 500 metres from the village and turns the ground water yellow. Liu said the factory provided drinking water to about 100 households who could not afford to move away and still lived in the village. “People in our village die early; many die in their 50s,” he said. Beijing’s ‘smog refugees’ flee the capital for cleaner air down south Mainland media reports have said many Songting villagers have died from cancer and cardiovascular diseases, and young men from the village have a hard time finding wives because of the terrible living conditions. But elsewhere in Qianan, complaints about pollution are not as strong, with many people working for the steel factories or providing related services. A woman selling chestnuts in a market said she was happy her husband had been rehired by a mining company under Shougang Qianan after business picked up in March this year. “[The steel] price is up again and the business has returned to normal,” she said. “Only the air pollution is too bad.” The air quality in northern China continued to worsen in October and November, compared to the same period last year, affecting hundreds of millions of people. This week it got worse, reaching levels not seen in years, with 460 million people exposed to smog levels six times higher than the World Health Organisation’s daily guidelines, according to calculations by Greenpeace. The environmental group blamed the worsening smog on a resurgence in steel production since the second quarter of this year as a result of rising steel prices. The chronic smog, which has prompted a red alert for pollution, has entered its fifth day in many places, including Beijing. Private vehicles in 24 cities can only take to the road every second day and debate is swirling on social media platforms about the causes of the smog, with middle-class city dwellers demanding safe, clean air. Smog blankets Beijing as year’s first red alert comes into effect Some online posts have started to ask why government capacity-reduction campaigns appear to have led to more steel production, and more pollution. Statistics from the steel and iron industry association show that by mid-November, China had beaten this year’s target of cutting steel capacity by 45 million tonnes by 22 million tonnes. But despite the phasing out of 67 million tonnes of capacity, steel output in the first 11 months of the year increased by 1.1 per cent. “The central government has promised no layoffs at large state-owned steel companies due to concerns about social stability,” says one post circulating on WeChat. “So it’s business as usual, banks keep supporting them, while cutting capacity and reducing smog has turned into a joke. “We may need to continue to breathe in the smog for quite a few years.”