THE city will wake up to moderate to heavy air pollution this morning, but the situation should improve slightly over the course of the day, forecasters said yesterday.
On Thursday, the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau issued a yellow smog alert — indicating the air quality index was likely to remain between 201 and 225 for the next 24 hours.
This was lifted at 5pm yesterday when the gauge fell to 137. PM2.5 particles remained the major pollutant, with their density peaking at 223 micrograms per cubic meter, or almost 10 times the World Health Organization’s “safe” level.
On the weather front, today will be both sunny and cloudy, and rain is forecast for the evening, which will help to dampen the air pollution, the Shanghai Meteorological Bureau said.
The mercury is expected to range between 3 and 10 degrees Celsius over the course of the day.
The rains will continue through tomorrow, pushing the top temperature down to about 8 degrees. The mercury is forecast to fall even further next week as a new cold front arrives in the city, the bureau said.
Meanwhile, a shop owner in Jinshan District yesterday became the first person in the city to be fined for setting off firecrackers on a heavily polluted day.
Police officers said they saw remnants of firecrackers outside the store during their morning patrol. When questioned, the business owner said he set off the fireworks to celebrate the reopening of his shop after a renovation. He was promptly fined 100 yuan (US$15).
A new rule introduced at the turn of the year extends the ban on the lighting of fireworks or firecrackers to all parts of the city if the AQI rises above 200. The practice is prohibited at all times within the Outer Ring Road.
Those who break the rule can be fined up to 500 yuan, while those who store fireworks without proper permission can be detained.
As of Thursday, 44 people had been detained for firework-related offenses since the start of the year, while fines totaling 62,000 yuan had been issued, and more than 5,500 boxes of fireworks and firecrackers had been confiscated, police said earlier.
