As weeks of toxic levels of air pollution in northern China continued Wednesday, citizens were becoming increasingly concerned about dangerous health effects.
The level of fine particulates in Beijing - those that can embed deep inside human lungs - measured 345 microgrammes per cubic metre on Wednesday, according to the US embassy. The maximum safe level is 25 microgrammes, according to the World Health Organization.
Streets and public places were largely empty of people and traffic after officials closed schools and major expressways.
"I wear a mask indoors because the air here is not that much better," a hospital receptionist in Beijing said. "If this problem doesn't get better soon, I will have to move my family somewhere else."
In central China's Henan province, flights were delayed as visibility at Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport fell to just 50 meters on Wednesday morning.
Some 180 flights at the airport were cancelled over the past two days, and more delays were reported at airports in other cities.
Meanwhile, a poem about the negative health effects of the smog written by Zhao Xiaogang, deputy chief of thoracic surgery at the Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, spread on Chinese social media in recent days.
The poem, "I Long to be King," was told from the perspective of "ground glass opacity," a finding on CT scans that indicates fluid in the lungs.
"No one cared when I was young, but all fear me we when full grown. I've been nourished on the delicious mist and haze," Zhao's poem read.
According to official statistics from 2012, 569,000 people in China die from lung cancer annually, however some experts say the actual numbers are much higher.
DPA
