(Clearwisdom.net)

Floating dust in Changchun City; visibility only one hundred meters	Changchun citizens buy respirators to avoid sand attack

According to CNS (China News Service) November 11, 2002 report in Shenyang City, at 7 a.m. today, windstorms and floating dust suddenly attacked Shenyang. This is the first floating dust storm as the city enters into winter. The weather forecast reported the weather today would be snowy and rainy, but did not mention the floating dust.

According to CNS November 11, 2002 report in Changchun City: dust floating hit most of Jilin Province, and the heaviest sandstorms were in Changchun City and Siping City.

At 8 a.m., the sky in Changchun turns to dark yellow, like nighttime. The visibility is only a hundred meters in the downtown. Vehicles have to turn on headlights and crawl forward. Pedestrians are "armed" with respirators, hats and head covers, lowering their head and moving forward hastily in the dust and gale.

At the same time, several other cities in Jilin Province such as Siping, Jilin and Tonghua are also attacked by dust floating to different degrees. The sandstorm in Siping is the heaviest. According to the report of local meteorological department, the average wind force this morning is nine meters per second, and the strongest gale is at force VII.

CNS November 11, 2002 report: dust floating hit Jilin Province today, and the whole city is enveloped by the floating dust, causing great inconvenience to the traffic and citizens' movement outside. It is unusual for the occurrence of this kind of sandstorm in early winter.

It is reported that the traffic suffered greatly. As the visibility in Changchun City is only 350-400 meters, and airplanes could not land. Eight flights have been postponed this morning, leaving passengers stranded at the airport.

The Central Meteorological Observatory estimated that starting from this afternoon to tomorrow morning [November 12], windstorms at force IV and VI will accompany with floating dust to hit the eastern northwest, most of north China and northeast China.

CNS November 12, 2002 report: starting from yesterday, gale at force V and VI has blown into Beijing.

According to Beijing Morning Daily report, the windstorms will reach force III and IV today, it is estimated that on November 14; they will reach force IV to V.

CNS November 11, 2002 report: Sandstorms suddenly hit most of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous region yesterday.

It was following the weather of windstorms and temperature reduction at 11 a.m. yesterday morning. At 5 o'clock in the evening, it spread into the central and west parts of Inner Mongolia and the temperature dropped. With the strongest sandstorms, the visibility of cities, such as Erenhot, Linhe and Darhan Muminggan, is the lowest. Visibility in Erenhot was less than 50 meters. Experts note that it is infrequent to have this kind of sandstorm in early winter.

Reporters Erenhot City saw that at noon, gale suddenly hit the city, the gale force reached force V. At 2 p.m., floating dust suddenly darkened the sky. Until 4 p.m., the whole city was in dark red. When the reporter drove on the main street, the visibility was less than 50 meters. People could no longer ride bicycles and vehicles turned on fog lights. Cable TV signals were interrupted and water supply was cut in partial areas of the city. Until 11 p.m., floating dust enveloped the whole city.

According to people in Jilin Province who had gone to Beijing for business, during the 16^th National Party Congress, there were numerous plainclothes policemen on Tiananmen Square. If three people gathered for a longer time at any given place, plainclothes policemen would immediately surround them and interrogate them to find out where they came from. In addition, local citizens discussed privately about an abnormal phenomenon that over 4,000 policemen from Jilin Province had been transferred to Beijing. On the surface, the policemen were told that they were going in order to receive awards, but actually they were sent there for emergency surveillance.