Beijing will again be covered in a toxic haze this weekend barely 10 days after heavy smog blanketed the Chinese capital, a reminder that the city is yet to overcome its years-old problem of air pollution despite spending over a billion dollars on a clean-up, local authorities said on Friday.
Beijing will see another spell of smog in the next three days and has issued a yellow alert for heavy air pollution for Saturday noon, officials said.
The municipal air pollution emergency response office said that Beijing and neighbouring regions will be hit by heavy pollution due to adverse weather conditions.
The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as well as the neighbouring provinces of Shanxi, Shandong and Henan will be affected by the smog, the ministry of ecology and environment said.
Beijing and several cities in northern China were hit by heavy smog for over three days since November 14, the worst so far this winter with levels of PM 2.5 - the fine particulate matter - touching 376 micrograms per cubic metre which meant "hazardous" levels of air pollution with potential to cause "serious health" problems to everyone.
This time the air quality will have improved by Monday evening. Of late, Beijing which suffered heavy pollution for several years has begun witnessing more clear and sunny weather due to a host of measures but officials say the recurrence of smoggy days showed the city is yet to overcome the problem completely.
The city initiated of 338 projects to switch from coal-fired heating to that of natural-gas that cost about USD 1.3 billion.