During a week in China, I got to experience the worst smog the country had seen in a long time, with record 2.5pm particles in the 900 range, 3 times the level considered hazardous to your health and able to enter your lungs and even bloodstream.

While Beijing gets most of the press, the smog blanketed the entire country so the following pictures are from Beijing, but also Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Shanghai. The first picture was on 1/12/13 from the 50th floor of my hotel room in Beijing. The final picture was taken the last night I was in China in Shanghai, the clearest day I had the entire trip.

The English paper magazines had multiple stories each day on the epidemic, and many expats are asking and receiving hazard pay because of the air pollution. In fact, looking back over my shoulder as I exited my arriving flight into Beijing, terminal number 3 at the Peking international airport showed a layer of smog inside the building, making it unsafe to be inside as well.