The incident of strong air pollution which has been affecting for days the Beijing and other areas of it northern china is expected to last until mid-November, Chinese state media reported today.

Tens of millions of residents in and around the Chinese capital are facing the worst smog in months this week.

Today the concentration of dangerous PM25 fine particles in Beijing was more than 20 times higher than the limit set by the World Health Organization, air quality monitoring company IQAir pointed out. According to the Swiss company, Beijing is currently the third most polluted city in the world.

Visibility in most parts of Beijing has dropped to less than 500 meters, the China Meteorological Agency said.

In order to deal with the smog, Chinese authorities have taken measures to restrict vehicular traffic and encouraged citizens to stay indoors.

“Moderate” levels of contamination, well above recommendations, but also “severe and elevated” are expected to affect the Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei regions until mid-November, according to Chinese officials cited by the Beijing Daily. More than 100 million people live there.

Record temperatures

Experts estimate that the air pollution is due to the particularly high temperatures prevailing in China and weak cold air currents from the north.

In particular, Beijing experienced unusually high temperatures in October, which was the second warmest October in the last 60 years.

Last month the Beijing Observatory recorded an average temperature of 15.6 degrees Celsius, according to the Beijing Daily. This is a temperature of 1.8 degrees higher than the average of the period 1991-2000 for the month of October and the second highest since 1961.

The warmest October was recorded in 2006, when the average temperature reached 16.1 degrees Celsius.

At the same time, other cities in northern China recorded particularly high temperatures, such as Tianjin, where the average temperature on October 28 was 16.2 degrees Celsius, the second highest since 1961.