Published: December 6,2016
Heavy smog at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport stranded 20,000 passengers over the weekend. (Instagram/codons)
Video from China’s state-run CCTV shows a shrouded landscape of runways and terminal buildings with massive passenger jets barely visible in the haze.
Visibility was less than 700 feet in many areas, prompting Chinese officials to issue an Orange alert, China’s second highest warning for air pollution, CCTV reports.
The “worst fog in years” closed the airport's runway for nearly 10 hours, and at least 90 flights were canceled, Xinhua News reports. Nearly three dozen arriving flights were forced to land at other airports.
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Chengdu is notorious for its bad air. According to the New York Times, a recent study of air quality in five Chinese cities found that in Chengdu, air quality falls outside the “good” range for 40 percent of the year. Chengdu also suffered the most prolonged spells of heavy pollution.
The Sichuan Basin, where Chengdu is located, “are not good places to be,” study author Chen Songxi, a statistician at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, told the Times. “They’re not suitable for heavy industry,” because their physical settings trap pollutants. “If you have heavy industry there, this is what you’ll get.”
Conditions are so bad that back in 2013, the city opened a clinic for patients who suffered from symptoms related to smog, the South China Morning Post reported at the time.
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Wang Qixun, a doctor at the clinic, told the Post the clinic was set up because the hospital had seen a surge in the number of smog-related complaints - coughs, sore or itching throats, asthma and heart disease “triggered or worsened by smog.”
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