On the first day with visible blue sky in almost a week Nanjing Expat provides a roundup of the smog situation of the past days after last Wednesday saw the arrival of an impenetrable wall of pollution unlike any Nanjing has ever experienced.
The most serious smog wave in the entire history of the city and Jiangsu province brought a standstill to many areas of public life, causing chaos and concern on an individual as well as a political level.
On Wednesday, 4th December the city rose to find itself confronted with a visibility of less than 50m, worrying levels of PM2.5 and readings of 354. According to international standards, levels of 300 and above are considered as hazardous. By Friday the local government issued a red alert, for the first time ever. A description of the situation by city officials saw the sun’s colour compared to that of ‘salted egg yolk’.
Thursday and Friday saw the closure of Nanjing’s educational institutions as kindergartens and schools advised their students and their parents to stay indoors in order to ensure their physical safety.
Unsurprisingly, a vast majority people who dared venture outside or had no choice sported masks. The seriousness of the situation became very clear when an outdoor fashion show threw all ceremony overboard and had their models run the catwalk not only in luxurious evening gowns but also plain, white facemasks.
Transport was one of the areas most severely affected by the poor environment. Nanjing Lukou International Airport had to suspend services with over 100 flights cancelled or delayed during the last couple of days. Highways in the city and even in rural parts of the province were closed, forcing people to find alternative routes to reach their destinations.
The only happy news for drivers was the leniency afforded them due to the impact on visibility brought by the polluted air. On routes to the Yangtze River bridges, where the dangerous mist was so bad people could not even see the traffic lights, a blind eye was turned to people running red lights.
Had the red alert continued, there could well have been serious repercussions for public transport as discussion arose of shutting down up to a third of the buses servicing the city. With Nanjing’s very basic metro network, traffic would have undeniably dissolved into chaos.
Luckily, it did not come to this. Since yesterday Nanjing’s residents could witness the air around them clearing up and the situation’s return to normality. However, what remains is the bitter aftertaste not only of dirty air but of the fact that this is not the last time the people of Nanjing will have to face such inhumane living conditions. The only hope that remains is that this could be the necessary wakeup call to increase preventive measures and efforts by all to improve their environment.
