Industrial city of Xingtai struggling to clear its heavily polluted skies

Beijing

WELCOME to Xingtai, China's most polluted city.

Caught in between overcapacity, vested interest and a looming unemployment crisis, Xingtai is struggling to meet Beijing's requirements to clean the air.

Visitors to Xingtai, located in Hebei province south of Beijing, are welcomed by a thick brown cloud of lingering smog. On this morning early February, visibility is reduced to a mere 10 metres. Outside, a mass of fine particulate matter transforms the desolate landscape into a two-dimensional world.

Xingtai has just been named for the third consecutive year a…