春季沙塵暴令中國空氣汙染雪上加霜

Spring Sandstorms Add to China’s Bad Air Misery

春季沙塵暴令中國空氣汙染雪上加霜

Beijing, a city already notorious (惡名昭彰的) for its smog (煙霧), has seen some of the worst air quality in memory over the first weeks of 2013. Much of the blame has rightly been aimed at coal burning, the rising number of vehicles, the low quality of fuel standards and industrial pollution that blows in from surrounding regions. But this week the Chinese capital has been hit with an air quality disaster of a more ancient vintage (骨董、古老或二手物) a sandstorm blowing out of the north.

On Wednesday afternoon I sat in an office building on the city’s east side and could see across the city of some 20 million to the Fragrant Hills (香山) to the west, the sort of clarity that only happens a few times a year. Then, within the space of an hour, visibility was back to the Beijing standard of a few blocks. (Here are some photo galleries documenting the dramatic changes.) On Wednesday morning the concentration of particles (懸浮顆粒濃度) smaller than 10 micrometers in diameter (直徑) soared briefly on the city’s west side to nearly 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter (立方公尺). By comparison, the World Health Organization guideline (指導方針) for 24-hour mean levels (標準) of PM 10 is 50 micrograms. The city’s Environmental Protection Bureau advised residents to stay inside if possible.

The sandstorm hit Beijing just as the city was preparing for the annual National People’s Congress. Yao Ming, who is in town as a delegate (代表) to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body that meets ahead of the NPC, was photographed grimacing (作怪相, 扮鬼臉) at the sky as he left his hotel this morning. The government will undoubtedly face new calls for a solution to China’s air pollution woes as the NPC meets next week. The issue, which has long been downplayed, has simmered online recently as Chinese microblog (微博) users have posted air pollution data online, first from a meter run by the U.S. Embassy that measures finer, more dangerous PM 2.5 particles, and now from the local environmental protection bureaus in Beijing and other cities that have begun posting detailed PM 2.5 readings.

For much of the winter the winds blowing from the north have offered a rare respite (暫緩) from pollution, as cold air from less polluted Mongolia has flushed out the toxic haze (薄霧) in the Chinese capital. But as spring comes, snow and ice melt leaving vast stretches (延亙, 連綿的土地) of desert and dry, sandy earth exposed. Then the wind brings a stinging (尖銳的、如刺的) grit (沙礫), and a reminder that as China tries to clean up the pollution caused by untrammeled (不受拘束的) development, it also struggles to contain (控制、遏止) the mess it has faced for centuries.

在此補充一些單字解釋和資訊：

Vintage:

這個字有很多意思，一般來說代表古色古香的二手物或仿古品，後來被引申為一種不歲時代潮流而退流行的經典設計。 此外，也被用來形容好的葡萄酒或圖萄酒產季。