Air quality in the Chinese capital has reached off-the-chart marks over the weekend, according to environmentalists. "This is really the worst on record, not only from the official data, but also from the monitoring data from the US embassy," said Zhou Rong, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace. It’s so polluted, that its level is 30-45 times higher than recommended safety standards. People are urged to avoid outdoor physical activities. Concentration of harmful substances at some Beijing monitoring stations has reached 900 micrograms per square meter on Saturday evening, according to the city’s monitoring center. Air is considered good when the index is at 50 or below, but hazardous with readings between 301 and 500.

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