Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Curse you EVIL YELLOW DUST..


It arrived yesterday morning and 36 hours later it is still here.. IT IS CURRENTLY IN THE 'YELLOW LEVEL'...

Green is 0-100...
Yellow 100-200... problems for children, those w/ asthma and other respiratory
problems (me)
Blue 200-400 (Hazardous for all)
Orange 400-799 Danger! Will Robinson! Danger!!
Purple.. above 800.. (HOLD YOUR BREATH? GET A GAS MASK?)

Last night, I woke up and got some water.. looked out the window and I could tell it was a bad, bad, bad sky out there.. got on the military website.. where this stuff is monitored and it was in the blue level!

As a reminder, this was taken just last week.. (of course they were taken later in the day than today's photo of the 'evil yellow dust' so visibility should be less than today's photo anyway.. but, you can clearly see that the photo taken at SUNSET is far clearer than today's 4:20 pm photo)

AND ANOTHER VIEW AT SUNSET..




I really do think that this is our future danger to our environment. Evil dirty air dropping in for a visit from other countries that aren't doing their part to prevent air pollution. The YELLOW DUST comes from the Gobi Desert in China. It contains some air pollution and a mix of fine chemicals that are the big problem to inhale. There is nothing that we can do here in Korea to prevent this from being blown by the air currents. It is worse every year and the season lasts longer and arrives earlier each year.

Last year, at almost exactly the same time, I spent 10 days in the hospital because of the EVIL YELLOW DUST.. the levels got over 1500. I was sick for months, weeks.. it took a long time to get well. *I developed pneumonia after I was in the emergency room and that added to the length of recovery time.

I hope to move this year and am waiting any day to find out where I might be moving to.. I am hoping for ITALY..

2 comments:

Kim Mears said...

That dust just looks nasty! Sorry it is back. Take care of yourself!

How long have you been in Korea? How often do you move? Italy would be nice. I will keep my fingers crossed for you!

iwouldratherbeknitting said...

The yellow dust season is March-June (until the rains start in the summer and they can start in May, June or July).. and the yellow dust season has now started showing up in Dec, Jan, Feb.. off and on.. not on a regular basis though.

I've been here 3 years this time. It's not a guaranteed move-- it just depends if there is a job opening and no one else (with more years for the same company) applies for the same place as I do.. it's all based on 'years of employment' (which is fair)..

SO.. we'll see. I applied last year and didn't get a transfer.. But, I was in the lowest group possible. (you have to be at a certain location for so long-- before you move up in priority) and this year, I'm in a much higher priority group and have a much better chance.