Beijing, 11 Април 2023 (dpa/МИА) - A severe sandstorm has swept across the Chinese capital Beijing and other regions of northern China, affecting around 409 million people, according to the Ministry of Forests, the Global Times newspaper reported.

Beijing's air pollution index rose well above the scale's upper limit to 1300 on Monday evening, a scale on which levels of 150 are already considered "unhealthy."

The storm reduced visibility to a few dozen metres.

The sandstorm blew in from southern Mongolia and hit other northern regions alongside Beijing, including Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang and Xinjiang, the ministry said. In total, it affected an area of 2.29 million square kilometres.

So far this year, the weather centre reported that northern China has already experienced more sandstorms than on average in the past ten years.

With extremely high PM10 fine dust concentrations, the air index in Beijing was still around 900 on Tuesday morning, while a cloud of dust hung over the capital, only dispersing when the winds picked up later in the day.