Northern China was bracing for up to two more days of choking sandstorms after an estimated 336,000 tons of dust fell on the capital Beijing in a single day, state press reported. "According to calculations (Monday) morning, the amount of dust that fell overnight amounted to 20 grams (0.7 ounces) of dust a square meter," the Beijing Morning Post quoted Zhang Mingying, a senior engineer at the Beijing Meteorological Station, as saying.
"This amounts to 336,000 tons falling on entire Beijing."
According to the station, air quality in the city remained at hazardous levels after sandstorms blown in from the deserts and grasslands of Mongolia and northwestern China blanketed the city late Sunday and early Monday.
A new weather front was moving in from the north and would stir up more sand on Tuesday and Wednesday. It would ensure that much of northern China, including the northeast area bordering Russia and the Korean peninsula, would be shrouded in dust, the Central Meteorological Bureau said in its forecast.
Beijing meteorologists were furiously trying to induce rain as the front moved in by shooting iodine tablets into cloud formations, the China Youth Daily reported.
Rains forecast for Monday night largely failed to materialize and did little to disperse the suspended dust particles that were hanging over most of northern China, reports said.
The current dust storm was the eighth to sweep across Beijing since New Year compared with a historical average of just six per year. It conforms with other data suggesting that the air quality is getting worse in Beijing, which will host the summer Olympics in 2008.
So far this year, the city has reported 56 "blue sky days," defined as days with excellent or fairly good air quality, 16 days fewer than the same period of 2005.
Northern China experiences sandstorms almost every spring but this year the situation has worsened because of high temperatures and a prolonged drought.
