755 out of 500!

Have you guys seen the news out of Beijing lately? No? That's probably because it got trapped in the crazy smog that is shrouding the city. Over the course of January, Beijing (along with its environs) has been repeatedly shrouded in a giant cloud of smog, which has degraded the air quality to a startling extent. A few weeks ago, the U.S. Embassy recorded an Air Quality Index of 755, on a scale of 0 to 500, where 500 is Hella Bad (my words), and above 500 is not even defined. The EPA calls any AQI above 301 "hazardous," as in "don't go outside; breathing is bad for you out there." According to The Atlantic, things got even more off-the-charts bad later in the month:

At the height of recent pollution, Beijing authorities said readings for PM2.5 -- particles small enough deeply to penetrate the lungs -- hit 993 micrograms per cubic metre, almost 40 times the World Health Organization's safe limit.

At least 19 days in January featured hazardous air, and on January 29, thick smog covered almost one seventh of China. This, as you can imagine, caused major traffic chaos on highways and severe disruptions in air traffic. The smog got so bad that the Chinese media actually started reporting on it, an occurrence that itself was so newsworthy that the New York Times wrote a whole article about it. Hospital admissions for respiratory conditions have spiked dramatically.

The Atlantic published a series of startling photographs today of the smog, some of which show the same exact area of Beijing on a normal day and a smoggy day. My jaw dropped when I saw some of the pictures. No wonder The Atlantic called the series "China's Toxic Sky".

Captions mine

And I thought driving in LA was bad...

This plane ACTUALLY TOOK OFF

Perhaps not surprisingly, air purifiers in Beijing are apparently going for about $2000 a pop. That's communism for you!

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Want to know where in the world the worst air pollution in the world is? This slightly out-of-date chart from NASA should help. Hint: It's China.