(Image source : alexhofford.com)

BY NOE GANDILLOT

ANCHOR ANA COMPAIN-ROMERO

Air pollution has become a major source of worry in Beijing in recent days. The BBC's Damian Grammaticas has the latest from China’s capital:  

“This is what everybody in Beijing is talking about today : this grey pall of smoggy stuff that is just hanging over the city, right over everything. We are in the middle of the central business district here. If you take a look down this way, along the road, that is the heart of Beijing’s business district and look, it just fades into the gray in the distance because of pollution.”

As a result, hundreds of flights were stranded at the Beijing Capital International Airport -- and the smog pushed many residents to buy respirator masks. Radio Free Asia reports pollution is a great concern in China’s capital:

“Beijing residents are accustomed to skies polluted by coal plants and by the nearly five million vehicles plowing the city’s streets. International organizations, including the United Nations, list the Chinese capital as one of the most polluted cities in the world.”

However, Monday's air pollution was only rated as "moderate" by Chinese authorities. And a meteorological engineer told China’s Global Times:

“According to our records, smog occurred on average six times a year in the past three decades. The current smog is the seventh this year, so we cannot say it is not normal."

But official accounts were challenged by data released by the US embassy, which uses a different methodology to calculate pollution levels.The Embassy monitors Beijing’s air quality via a twitter feed named @BeijingAir. The US Ambassador in China talked to CNN’s correspondant in Hong Kong:

GARY LOCKE: “It measures the very fine particles particulates which are health concerns, I think that are less than 2.5 microns. I think the acceptable range in the United States is 35, here we are at more than 400, more than 10 times the acceptable level.”

On Monday, the US Embassy said the pollution level in Beijing was “hazardous”. CNN says the discrepancy has “drawn criticism in online posts in China, which point to the different U.S. numbers and criticize the Chinese approach.” (Images : NTDTV) And France’s Le Monde reports...

“Millions of Internet users have expressed exasperation and anxiety about their health. Pollution was the most talked about topic on the Internet on Tuesday, with 4.4 million messages sent on Weibo, China’s main microblogging site.”