BEIJING -- Beijing was cloaked in thick yellow smog on Monday with pollution levels surging off the charts as the worst sandstorm in a decade descended on China's capital from the Gobi desert.
City residents used goggles, masks and hairnets to protect themselves from the choking dust and sand, with landmarks including the Forbidden City partly obscured behind an apocalyptic-looking haze.
The city government ordered schools to cancel outside sport and events and advised the public to stay inside where possible, as hundreds of flights were cancelled.
Chinese weather agencies blamed the poor air quality on a sandstorm sweeping across northern China from northern Mongolia, where authorities there said it had left several dead, before being carried south by winds and reducing visibility in Beijing to less than 500 metres.
Under heavy skies, which draped buildings in an eerie glow, Beijing residents fretted over the health risks of a storm which compounded days of hazardous PM 2.5 pollution in the capital.
Pan Xiaochuan, a Beijing-based environmental health expert, told AFP that the lack of recent rain or snow meant the ground was extra dry and made the sandstorm "very fierce."
"If there is less moisture, more dust will be scraped up," he said. "Since the sandstorm is blown from a high altitude, the general windbreak tree belts won't be very effective, so it has been blown over ... very quickly."
Sandstorms blowing into the capital are a result of extreme weather conditions and desertification, said Li Shuo of Greenpeace China.
But he told AFP that "intense" industrial activities had also contributed to bad air in Beijing over recent weeks, with the production of steel, cement and aluminium already overtaking pre-pandemic levels as the economy bounces back into action.
Discussion of the orange haze lit up online discussions -- with 230 million views on social media platform Weibo by Monday afternoon.
"This orange red sandstorm makes it looks like the end of the world," said one Weibo user.
