As PRC Talks Improved Weather Forecasts, Beijing's Foul Air Forces Daytime Headlight Use - ESPN

BEIJING -- Beijing weather forecasters chose Wednesday to talk up improved technology, meaning more precise predictions for the 2008 Olympics. They picked a bad day to talk about the weather. Even by Beijing standards -- the city is one of Asia's most polluted -- Wednesday stood out. By early afternoon, a thick haze significantly reduced visibility. At street level, soot and humid air produced a fog of pollution.

After several days with temperatures hovering near 100 degrees, a rainstorm cooled but further darkened the city with vehicles using headlights most of the afternoon. Zhai Xiaohui, a spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection, described the city as "slightly polluted today."

However, a teacher in a Beijing school said it was worse than that. "Actually, it is a terrible day," said the teacher at Beijing's Yuetan Middle School, who identified herself as Ms. Yang. "It's extremely sultry and polluted. But it is normal in Beijing. Our students will have outdoor exercises on such days, unless when there are sandstorms."

Health officials warned this week about the possibility of heatstroke, and on Tuesday the Beijing Electric Power Co. said demand was the highest in history.

EDIT

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=oly&id=2918511

In 1952 people actually dropped dead in the city of London from dangerous fossil fuel waste in the air - in this case the dangerous fossil fuel in question was coal, the same as it is in China.

I would not be surprised to see a repeat of 1952 in some Chinese city, although it might not get news coverage.

China had the world's greatest energy disaster of all time when the Banqiao dam collapsed and led to a series of collapses of down stream dams. Hundreds of thousands were killed and the entire planet still acts as if nothing happened.

So will it be, I bet, with dead from dangerous fossil waste asphyxiation.