Chinese Dust Turns South Korea into the Gobi Desert

South Koreans woke up Monday morning with dirty yellow dust when looking out of the window. All of South Korea is covered by desert dust from the Gobi Desert coming from the Inner Mongolian Region in China.

1. The week in South Korea today turned the country into the Gobi Desert on Monday. An extraordinarily strong yellow dust storm originating from the inland deserts in northern China and Mongolia blanketed all of South Korea.
2. South Korean authorities issued a yellow dust warning for Seoul and almost all parts of the country.
3. Koreans with asked citizens to stay indoors

eTN Reader Mr. Cho says: “When I woke up, I usually see this view from my apartment. I can see the mountain line in front of many apt buildings. But today, Seoul is now on a Yellow dust alert. This dust covered the view mountain line. It shows the importance of air quality,

The density of fine dust particles smaller than 10 micrometers in diameter, known as PM 10, surged to the “very bad” level in the greater Seoul area and all other regions, authorities said.

As of 10 a.m., the hourly average concentration of PM 10 reached 1,115 micrograms per cubic meter in Daegu, 842 micrograms in the southwestern city of Gwangju, 508 micrograms in Seoul and 749 micrograms in the central city of Daejeon, according to the state-run National Institute of Environmental Research’s Air Quality Forecasting Center.

Notably, the hourly PM 10 average skyrocketed to 1,348 micrograms in parts of Daegu, about 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

The weather authorities here categorize concentrations of PM 10 between zero and 30 micrograms as “good,” between 31 and 80 as “normal,” between 81 and 150 as “bad” and more than 151 as “very bad.”

The PM 10 level reached a peak of 545 micrograms in Seoul on Monday morning, the center said, noting Busan and the southern resort island of Jeju also registered very bad levels of PM 10 reaching 235 and 267 micrograms, respectively.

The center explained that the entire nation has come under the influence of a massive dust storm that originated in the Inner Mongolian region in northern China and the Gobi Desert in Mongolia on Friday and moved south by riding northwesterly winds.