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Taiwan's air affected by sandstorm

The Environmental Protection Administration has called on people with heart and respiratory diseases to cut down on outdoor activities or wear gauze masks and use handkerchiefs to protect their respiratory tracts for the duration of a sandstorm that has hit the island. The storm has increased particles in the air by eight to 10 times. PHOTO: LIAO JUI-HSIANG, TAIPEI TIMES

Officials from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) issued a warning yesterday that the public should avoid outdoor activities in coming days while the island is affected by a sandstorm from China.

"[Today], senior citizens and those with respiratory diseases in central and southern Taiwan should remain alert to the potential threat from the sandstorm," said Yang Chih-yuan (楊之遠), director of the EPA's Environmental Monitoring and Data Processing Bureau.

The EPA's local air monitoring systems showed that air quality has been adversely affected by the arrival of the sandstorm since early yesterday morning.

The worst air quality so far detected was in Hsinchu at midday yesterday, when the concentration of particulate matter in the air was measured as high as 279 micrograms per cubic meter per hour.

In northern Taiwan, several air quality monitoring stations yesterday recorded pollution standards index (PSI) values above 200. According to the EPA's air quality classification, PSI readings above 200 indicate the air quality is "very unhealthy."

On the northeastern coast, the PSI reading for Wanli township, Taipei County, was 224. In eastern Ilan County, the PSI for the air quality was 249. EPA officials predicted yesterday that the sandstorm would last until April 14.

According to the EPA, the cause of the recent drop in air quality was a "super sandstorm" that was generated in China's Gobi Desert, between April 7 and April 9. Such storms are not unusual in northwestern China and can carry yellow dust from the deserts across China, the Korean Peninsula and some parts of Japan to as far as Alaska and the Arctic, the EPA said.

Officials said that sandstorms are becoming more common as the deserts advance in China's arid northwestern regions, and that Taiwan's air quality suffered notably on five such occasions last year.

EPA officials said that the particulate matter will not affect visibility, but that people with respiratory diseases, such as asthma, however, will feel uncomfortable because human nasal hairs cannot filter out such fine particles.

Though China has attempted to combat the problem of advancing deserts with large-scale tree-planting programs, little success to date has been noted. The desertification of formerly green land has been attributed to global climate changes and the harmful side-effects of industrialization.
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