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Article: Dustbowl Beijing; Day becomes night as China's capital chokes under a million tons of sand blown in from the Gobi.
- Article from:
- Daily Mail (London)
- Article date:
- March 21, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Solo Syndication Limited. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: MICHAEL HANLON
THEY call it the shachenbao, or sanddust tempest. Its stinging silica particles - effectively natural ground glass - clog eyes and noses and rasp their way into airways.
Visibility is reduced to night-time levels.
Seeing more than 100 yards, even at midday, is impossible.
And six years from now, this is what the world's athletes may have to inhale as they strive for Olympic glory.
More than a million tons of fine-grained sand particles have swept in to the Chinese capital Beijing, formerly Peking, turning the skies a dull orange and making life a misery for the city's 13million inhabitants.
The ...