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Hordes of Beijing residents are fleeing China’s capital and heading south in pursuit of cleaner air as the year’s worst smog lay siege to the city.
This year’s first red alert for air pollution that is most harmful to health was issued in several northern cities, including Beijing, last Thursday, after thick choking smog was forecast to blanket much of the north until Wednesday.
Parents wait with their children at a hospital in Beijing on Sunday as the year’s worst smog enveloped the capital. Photo: AP
The red alert – the highest warning level in China’s four-tier system – triggers limits on the use of cars and suspension of schools and leads to the suspension of work at factories.
Half of the city’s cars have been ordered off roads on alternate days. Factories have been ordered to halt production, while schools have been temporarily shut until Wednesday.
Searches made on the travel website Qunar.com for tickets on flights to inland areas in the west and coastal areas in the east of the country were three times higher than before the red alert was issued, the Beijing Evening News reported.
The report quoted a man saying that he had immediately booked tickets for a five-day trip to Hainan province’s seaside resort of Sanya after learning that schools would be closed until Wednesday.
Except for the most expensive first-class seats, tickets for flights to China’s traditional resort areas in the south – such as Sanya, Dali, in Yunnan province, and Xiamen in Fujian province – are almost sold out.
Beijing roads have reduced levels of traffic on Monday as the red alert, introduced because of the severe air pollution, has led to half of all private cars banned from use on alternate days until Wednesday night. Photo: Xinhua
Full-fare tickets to other popular holiday destinations in the south, such as Kunming, in Yunnan, and Guilin, in Guangxi province, were all still available.
Pigeons fly above Beijing as heavy smog shrouds the capital on Monday. Photo: Reuters
Wang Xiaosong, chief executive of online travel agency Lvmama.com, told the Legal Evening News that resort areas with a warmer climate and cleaner air would increase in popularity as China’s top travel destinations.
People sit on a bench at a park in Beijing during heavy smog on Sunday. Photo: Reuters
Online travel agencies, such as Ctrip.com, have taken to touting “areas to go to avoid smog” in their holiday promotions.
A report issued by Ctrip.com over the weekend estimated that 150,000 people in China would travel overseas to avoid the choking smog in December, and that each year more than one million tourists travelled abroad for that reason.
Residents in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Tianjin are those who travel the most to avoid the smog at home.
(SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST)
