Photo taken on April 15, 2015 shows the Tiananmen Square enveloped in sandstorm in Beijing. Beijing was hit by moderate gale from Wednesday evening to night, and Beijing Meteorological Observatory has issued a yellow alert for sandstorm on Wednesday afternoon. (Photo: Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)
A strong sandstorm swept large swathes of north China on Wednesday, including Beijing, causing a yellow sky with gales.
The storm hit Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Wednesday, reducing visibility to less than 300 meters in certain areas, said the regional meteorological station.
The sandstorm, together with gales at maximum speeds of 75 km per hour, began to batter Beijing on Wednesday evening. Pedestrians in downtown Beijing wore masks or covered their mouths and noses with napkins, scarves and hands.
The Beijing Meteorological Station upgraded its alert for the weather from blue to yellow, forecasting visibility of less than 1,000 meters for Wednesday night.
The sandy weather also caused serious air pollution. A number of monitoring sites showed PM10 readings reached 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter on Wednesday evening, according to the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center.
Parts of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Beijing, Tianjin, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei and Jilin will be affected by the dusty weather from Wednesday afternoon to evening, said the National Meteorological Center (NMC) on Tuesday.
The NMC also forecast a strong cold front will sweep north China, including areas along the Yellow and Huaihe rivers, bringing temperature drops of up to 12 degrees Celsius with strong winds.
