Before the military parade on Thursday, Beijing's polluted skies were blue and clear. But just one day after the event, the city's residents awoke to the same familiar smell and sight of gray smog over the capital.
The sudden shift made the residents to understand that authorities might only clean up the city before big events, according to the Los Angeles Times. This situation also suggests the challenges that the city officials face in achieving and maintaining their goals to reduce carbon usage ahead of the international climate change summit scheduled in December, in Paris.
A user on Chinese social media site Weibo posted a comment stating that the 'parade blue' was just gone in an instant, according to the South China Morning Post. He added that he just got really used to the magic of the beautiful blue skies when suddenly woke up to the daily reality and felt a 'sense of insecurity'.
Ahead of the parade, officials suspended or restricted operations in about 40,000 construction sites and 10,000 factories in Beijing as well as in the neighboring provinces. They also took restrictive measures to reduce the traffic in the city by allowing its 5 million vehicles driving every other day, according to Chinese news agency Caixin. The measures in effect in late August have provided 15-day of relatively clear air.
As a result Beijing visitors and residents alike could be treated to "parade blue" skies on Sept. 3. According to LA Times, during that day, the city's air quality index reached a healthy 17 out of 500, according to the LA Times. Also, the levels of PM2.5 dropped to record low concentrations for eight straight days.
The Director of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center, Zhang Dawei, told China Daily that residents in the capital have experienced good air quality for 15 days, reaching the same levels as in metropolises in developed countries, such as London, Paris, Singapore and Moscow.
At midnight following the parade, the government eased the restrictions and the immediate result was that by Friday smog had returned and the air quality index was up to nearly 160 in parts of the city.
