The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said pollution had hit the heaviest level on the one-to-five scale five during the 24-hour period from noon Thursday.

"The city is experiening weather that is not beneficial to dispersing pollutants, so the city's emissions continue to concentrate creating a thick haze of pollution," it said on its website.

"Even under conditions of light winds, changes in temperature, high humidity and fog, the situation has only worsened."

The Beijing News called the pollution level the worst for the past six months as suspended particle levels reached a dangerous 300 micrograms per cubic meter.

"The effects of heavy pollution on the health are big, citizens should spend as little time doing outdoor activities as possible, especially children, elderly or those with heart and respiratory diseases," the bureau warned.

The situation was expected to improve by Sunday.

During the past decade of China's economic boom, Chinese cities have ranked among the most polluted in the world, with Beijing's air quality consistently among the worst in the country.

According to a report released in September by the European Space Agency (ESA), the world's largest amount of the smog gas, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), is hanging over Beijing and northeast China.

Levels of NO2, a pollutant released by factories, power plants and vehicle exhausts, have risen by about 50 percent across China over the past decade as a result of spectacular economic growth and are continuing to increase, ESA said.

By comparison, concentrations of NO2 have remained steady or declined over industrial parts of the United States and eastern Europe, ESA said.

The data was accumulated by instruments aboard the ESA Earth-monitoring satellite Envisat under a joint research project, called the Dragon Programme, by European and Chinese scientists.

Exposure to NO2 in large quantities is known to cause lung damage and respiratory problems. The gas is also a major ingredient of smog.

related report
British Engineers To Help Build 'Eco-Cities' In China: Report London (AFP) Nov 06, 2005 -- British engineers will this week sign a contract with Beijing to design and build a string of so-called 'eco-cities' in China, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

Coinciding with a state visit to Britain by Chinese President Hu Jintao, London-based consulting firm Arup will announce that it has clinched a deal to work on the self-sustaining urban centres equivalent to the size of a large western capital, The Observer weekly newspaper said.

Arup has already signed up for one such project near Shanghai, said the paper, which added that the eco-cities are regarded as a prototype for urban living in over-populated and polluted environments as well as a magnet for investment funds in China, whose economy is booming.

The signing ceremony was expected to take place at the official residence of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, with the partly state-owned Shanghai Industrial Investment Company acting on behalf of Beijing.

"We are going to help establish a model of how a sustainable city works, but it must also be a viable financial proposition in the long term to attract international investment," the paper quoted Peter Head, the Arup director in charge of the first eco-city Dongtan, as saying.

Head added: "It is no gimmick. It is being led at the highest levels of the Chinese government."

The Dongtan development aims to build a city three-quarters the size of Manhattan by 2040, with the first phase accommodating some 50,000 people, the paper said. Up to four more eco-cities will be built, though exact locations have yet to be revealed, it added.

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