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For days now Beijing has been suffering from a prolonged spell of the worst air pollution in the city’s history, a crisis so bad that it has been dubbed the “airpocalypse”.

The air has been classified as hazardous to human health and has already sent countless people to the hospital for respiratory ailments. The city is blanketed in a thick grey fog that is said to smell of coal and sting the eyes, leading officials to close highways, force the cancellation of flights and outdoor activities, and warn people in affected areas to remain indoors.

According to a researcher at Kyushu University, China’s giant toxic cloud of pollution is now expected to cross over to western Japan sometime later today.

http://youtu.be/8SZtSySIss8

The information was reported early this morning by Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS).

In the report, TBS cites a simulation created by Professor Toshihiko Takemura of Kyushu University that shows the pollution moving across the Sea of Japan to cover the western tip of Japan’s main island, Honshu, and the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku.

Professor Takemura explains that it’s highly likely the pollution will reach Japanese shores sometime between the morning of January 16 and the afternoon of January 17 (JST).

Seeing as how it’s already noon at the time of this writing and there’s still no word of contaminated air from western Japan, the good professor may have missed the mark.

You won’t find us complaining if that’s the case: Japan already gets its fill of industrial pollutants carried via air from China every spring with the seasonal “yellow sand” phenomenon.

As one Japanese netizen comments: “Maybe we can send them some radiation in return.”

Source: TBS News, Jinsoku
Header Image: NASA