As winter smog covers China, 79 cities trigger air pollution alerts

A total of 79 Chinese cities have triggered air pollution alerts as severe winter smog covers wide swaths of the country, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

As of Nov. 30, five cities had issued red pollution warnings, the most severe in China’s pollution warning system, 73 had issued orange warnings, the second-most severe, and one city had issued a yellow warning, triggering the implementation of emergency management and control measures, Xinhua reported.

The affected cities lie in and around the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region that includes China’s capital, as well as in the Fenwei plains area of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Henan