- BEIJING -- Residents of
China's
capital, accustomed to the gusts and grit that have pummeled the city every
spring for more than 10 years, weren't the only ones enduring this year's
sandstorm.
-
- The sand tempest that blew east from the Gobi Desert
swept as far as Japan and South Korea, where the thick yellow gloom slowed
traffic and forced airports and schools to close. Some of the dust is
expected
to reach the USA's West Coast in a week or two, giving the sky a milky
appearance.
-
- Beijing was hit Wednesday. Wearing gauze masks and
plastic
bags over their faces, pedestrians braved the gritty winds. Visibility
dropped to 100 yards. By Friday, 30,000 tons of dust and sand had blown
into Beijing, the official state news agency Xinhua reported.
-
- ''In two days, we saw as many people with allergies
worsened
by the dust and breathing difficulties as we usually see in a month,''
said Zhao Wei, a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine at the Chaoyang
No. 2 Hospital.
-
- Most Beijingers are resigned to the annual dust
migration.
The capital had 18 giant spring storms in the first six months of
2001.
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- Although China has a record of severe sandstorms going
back to the 16th century, the storms now wreak havoc over a wider
area.
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- The severity of China's storms in recent years and the
distance they carry the sand signal that more of the country has turned
into desert. Desertification affects 28% of China's land, the State
Forestry
Administration said in January. Deserts are growing by 950 square miles
every year, creating difficult conditions for 110 million people living
in and near the arid zones.
-
- Years of heavy farming and animal grazing on the northern
China plains have stripped the land of vegetation that protects the soil.
The exposed bare earth becomes a dust bowl easily swept up by the strong
Gobi winds. Aggravating the problem: four years of drought.
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- No one is more alarmed by the encroaching deserts than
China's leaders. Beijing, which will host the 2008 Olympic Games, has
committed
itself to a ''Green Olympics.'' The government has promised to transform
the capital into a ''garden city'' for the Games by creating belts of
trees.
The most ambitious project is a $6 billion ''green wall'' that, like the
Great Wall, will block an invasion -- this time of sand, not foreign
warriors.
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- Experts warn six years is not enough time. ''It will
take nearly half a century for China to control the eroded land and
rehabilitate
their damaged ecosystems,'' Chen Lei, vice minister of water resources,
said in January.
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