Toxic levels of pollution in China

Air pollution readings in China’s notoriously polluted capital were at dangerously high levels, with hazy skies blocking visibility and authorities urging people to stay indoors. The smog has limited visibility, canceled flights, kept people indoors, and sent them to hospitals with breathing, heart, and circulation problems.

Pictured: The financial district of Pudong is seen on a hazy day in Shanghai on Jan. 21.

China has cleaned up its air before, but experts say that if it wants to avoid the kind of smog that choked the country, it must overhaul an economy fueled by heavily polluting coal and car use.

Pictured: A child wore a mask while playing in the heavy smog in Qingdao in east China’s Shandong province.

Waste gas is discharged into the air by an oil refinery plant in Qingdao city in eastern China’s Shandong province on Jan. 16.

The Oriental Pearl Tower was seen through the haze in downtown Shanghai.

A couple wearing face masks walked along a street in Beijing. Shares in a Chinese face mask manufacturer soared on Jan. 15, as investors looked for opportunities to cash in on the severe air pollution.

Heavy smog hit hazardous levels according to the US Embassy air quality index app at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Jan. 23.

According to the US consulate air quality readings, which measured PM2.5 particulates, Shanghai’s air quality was “very unhealthy.’’

Members of a South Korean environmental activist group held signs, which called for China to come up with steps to improve its air quality, during a rally in front of the Chinese embassy on Jan. 16 in Seoul.

A man rode in heavy fog in Hefei in central China’s Anhui province.

An expatriate distributed face masks to pedestrians to raise awareness of air pollution at the Bund in downtown Shanghai on Jan. 24.

A man helped put on a mask for an elderly passerby while several foreigners hand out free masks to pedestrians in downtown Shanghai.

A nurse put in a drip for a baby diagnosed with respiratory diseases at a provincial children’s hospital in Hefei.

Patients helped their children to respire atomized liquid medicine at Xiangyang No. 1 People’s Hospital in Xiangyang.

A women wearing a mask rode a bicycle on the street during severe pollution on Jan. 23 in Beijing.

Houses and buildings were baerly seen on a heavy haze in Shanghai on Jan. 24.

Chinese villager Dong Chongxin of Dongtan Village washed lotus roots in a polluted river near the Jinhuarun Chemical Industry plant in Qianjiang, Hubei Province. Dong used to breed fish in fishing ponds by the river but now the water is so polluted by discharge from the chemical plant that all the fish have died and the ponds are just muddy swamps where only lotus roots will grow.

A villager from Xiangnan village showed dirt and grime on diseased vegetables caused by pollution from a nearby chemical plant. Many villagers complained of intensifying respiratory, heart, skin, and circulatory illnesses caused by the pollution and a large spike in cancer diagnoses and deaths since the factories were built.

A Xiangnan villager wiped dust from a picture frame of his grandson who has been sent away from the village to escape the pollution from nearby chemical plants.

Xie Xianwen of Xiangnan village, diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, rested in his bed at home in Qianjiang. Xie’s wife believes his cancer was caused by the pollution from the chemical plant nearby. Now constant noise pollution from the factories deprives him of sleep.

An infant wearing a mask was carried along a street in severe pollution in Beijing.

A view of a busy highway was seen as heavy smog engulfed Beijing.