Photos Show Yellow Sky, Low Visibility, From Record-Setting China Sandstorm

A number of provinces in northern China were hit Monday with a record-setting sandstorm, with photos showing yellow skies and low visibility as sand and dust ripped through areas including Beijing.

In a Monday statement, the National Meteorological Center issued a yellow warning for the storm. Because of cold air and gales, "there will be blowing sand or floating dust in South Xinjiang Basin and eastern Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, southwestern Heilongjiang, western Jilin, western Liaoning, Gansu, Ningxia, northern Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Beijing and Tianjin," the center said.

"This is the most intense sandstorm in China in the past 10 years, and the area affected by the sandstorm is also the most extensive in the past decade," the center wrote in a memo on its website.

In the photo below, the skies in Beijing have a yellowish tint caused by the storm's air pollution.

The photo below shows Beijing's Tiananmen Square shrouded in sand and dust, which caused low visibility and dangerous air-quality indexes.

The pictures shown capture many residents wearing protective face masks as they travel through the polluted air in Beijing.

"#Beijing sand storm today.... #China," Twitter user Stephen McDonell of the BBC wrote, along with a video showing the yellow skies and low visibility in the city.

Bloomberg Quicktake's Twitter account shared a similar video, with a caption that read, "Authorities issued an air pollution warning Monday as #Beijing got hit by major sandstorms with dust blowing in from Inner Mongolia. Air quality in China's capital has surged to the worst level since 2017."

Twitter user Sasa Petricic of CBC News in Canada wrote, "After a week of lung-choking industrial pollution in Beijing, China's capital wakes up to a gritty, orange mess: a sandstorm blown in from the Mongolian desert that sends air pollution levels off the charts - well beyond the 999 maximum on scales. Not unheard of, but rare."

According to the South China Morning Post, Mongolia's National Emergency Management Agency said on Monday that the sandstorm had caused at least six deaths and that 81 people were missing in the country.

Zhang Bihui, an official with China's National Meteorological Center, told the Post that the storm was caused by high temperatures and low precipitation in Mongolia and northern China.

"The sandstorm in Mongolia is severe.... With proper transmission conditions, it has resulted in the severe sandstorm in Beijing," Zhang said.

The Post also reported that the storm caused air quality measurements to surpass hazardous levels, including levels of PM10, a particle that can be linked to respiratory disease.

Newsweek reached out to the National Meteorological Center for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.