Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/02/19
By: Zoe Wei and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Feb. 19 (CNA) A concentration of dust from China will hit Taiwan on Saturday afternoon but will not be strong enough to reach the threshold to be called a “dust storm,” the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said Friday.

Tsai Hung-te (蔡鴻德), head of the EPA’s Department of Environmental Monitoring and Information Management, said the wave of dust is not expected to have a serious impact on Taiwan, but he still urged people who are sensitive to dust to take precautions.

“The wave of dust consists mostly of larger PM10 particles, and after the dust wave passes the outlying Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu archipelagos at around noon on Saturday, the PM10 concentration in those areas will reach between 100 and 150 micrograms per cubic meter,” Tsai said.

The impact of the phenomenon will be limited, he said, because the ice in Inner Mongolia in China has yet to melt and large volumes of sand particles have yet to be dragged southward by seasonal northeasterly winds.     [FULL  STORY]