Air Pollution Kills 4,000 In China Every Year

Due to air pollution, almost 4,000 Chinese die everyday, which accounts for 1 in 6 premature deaths, a new study finds, according to nbc.

About 1.6 million people in China die annually due to heart, lung and stroke problems caused by the polluted air, especially "small particles of haze", according to physicists at the University of California, Berkeley.

Emissions due to coal burning, for electricity as well as heating homes are leading to the air pollution. The study, to be published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE, has leveraged real air measurements as well as computer model calculations in order to compare deaths due to heart, lung and strokes for diverse pollutants.

""Nearly everyone in China experiences air that is worse for particulates than the worst air in the U.S," study lead author Robert Rohde said. About 38 percent of the Chinese population lives in areas with air emissions that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls "unhealthy."

"It's a very big number," Rohde said Thursday. "It's a little hard to wrap your mind around the numbers. Some of the worst in China is to the southwest of Beijing.

"In other words, nearly everyone in China experiences air that is worse for particulates than the worst air in the U.S.," Rohde said.

Air pollution is killing about 4,000 people in China a day, accounting for 1 in 6 premature deaths in the world's most populous country.

Air pollution in China is the worst in winter because they burn coal in order to heat their houses. The weather is bad enough to keep the "dirty air closer to the ground," Rohde said.

Beijing will host the 2022 Winter Olympics.

By eliminating coal use, carbon dioxide can be cleaned up, which is the chief global warming gas, Rohde said.