[Weather] Ultra fine dust is "bad" all day long, but why only Seoul?

[Anchor]
Due to smog from China, most ultrafine dust concentrations in the country soared to a 'bad' level today.

However, only Seoul's official air quality information was not available all day.

What was it for,
Reporter Kim Min-kyung
reports.

[Reporter]
The concentration of ultrafine dust once soared to around 100μg per cubic meter, mainly in the western region, as the atmospheric congestion overlapped with the smog from China that entered the Korean Peninsula through the western wind.

In Incheon and Jeju, the air across the country has become murky, with "ultra-fine dust warnings" issued.

The sky in Seoul turned blurry as if it were thick foggy.

Even the World Cup stadium, which is close to the World Cup Bridge, looks blurry due to fine dust.

But strangely, Seoul couldn't check air quality information all day.

When you enter Air Korea, the real-time air environment information system of the Ministry of Environment, all other regions have ultrafine dust levels, but only Seoul is not working.

The atmospheric monitoring network is broken.

[Yoon Tae-ho / Head of air quality modeling team at Seoul Institute of Health and Environment: The server and storage of the air environment integrated control system failed. The collected data had to be displayed externally, but it wasn't working.]

Citizens who were worried about whether to wear masks in cloudy skies are anxious and frustrated because they cannot know how bad the fine dust is.

[Kim Hyung-yong / Hongje-dong, Seoul: I saw that it says it's impossible to measure. From the standpoint of raising a child, there is a part that is sensitive to fine dust, but there seems to be a part that is a little concerned.]

[Kim Jung-ki / Seongsan-dong, Seoul: It's not good because the sky is cloudy. It's better if you know (fine dust information), but when you don't, you feel stuffy.]

With air quality deteriorating throughout the day, the air information system communication server was only restored at around 5 p.m., more than 10 hours later.

However, the Seoul Institute of Health and Environment said it was looking for specific reasons for the error, making it even more problematic that this problem can be repeated at any time.

It seems urgent to accurately analyze the cause and prepare measures to prevent recurrence.

I'm YTN's Kim Min-kyung.

a photographer for
;Lee Young-jae

Design;Lee Wonhee