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Air Pollution
Thousands of factories have closed and thousands more have been ordered to reduce emissions by 30 percent. Across a nearly California-sized area around Beijing, tens of millions of people in 17 major cities can drive only on alternate days, depending on whether their license plate ends in an odd or even number. Trucks carrying goods can enter Beijing only between midnight and 3 a.m., affecting deliveries of supplies like furniture and milk.
Gas stations have been barred from selling gas in canisters, and some have been shut entirely, though these measures may be aimed more to discourage the making of firebombs than to clear the air.
The government has also tried to shed some of the city’s 21 million people, declaring an APEC Golden Week, a six-day vacation modeled on the Golden Week public officials get each year around National Day in early October. Public schools have been closed, work has been halted on construction sites, and public services such as issuing marriage licenses and passports have been suspended.
Newlyweds may not set off firecrackers, a common feature of a wedding celebration. Hospitals have closed nonessential departments and are turning away patients with nonemergency ailments.
One prestigious government institute told researchers to avoid “dangerous locations” like rivers, reservoirs, ponds or wells, and to avoid crowds, but if they could not, then to avoid causing stampedes by not pushing people.
