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First sandstorm of year hits northern China
2007-03-31
Northern China was blanketed in dust on Saturday as the first sandstorm of the year struck the region, including the capital Beijing, state media reported, citing the national weather service. Visibility was low in the capital due to the storm, but meteorologists said the sand was likely to blow out of town by nightfall due to strong winds, the Xinhua news agency reported. The mild storm was caused by a cyclone which developed over Mongolia and then moved eastward toward parts of Inner Mongolia and northern Hebei province, said Sun Jun of the China Meteorological Administration, quoted by Xinhua. Authorities urged residents to stay indoors and cover up if venturing outside to protect themselves from the floating dust. Other sandstorms are in the forecast for Gansu, Liaoning, Ningxia and Shaanxi provinces, along with Inner Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, meteorologists said. Northern China suffered from more than a dozen dust storms last year which were attributed to desertification in China's northwestern regions, including Qinghai province. A similar number has been predicted for this year. China has around 1.74 million square kilometers (696,000 square miles) of desertified land, or 18 percent of its total land area. Despite the sandstorms, the Chinese government has insisted that it will intensify its efforts to clean the air and prepare for the 2008 Olympics by planting broad belts of trees around the capital.
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