Powerful sandstorms have swept into China's capital city after causing chaos in other parts of the country.
They hit Beijing - which will host the 2008 Olympics - on Monday, covering the landscape with a blanket of dust.
Streets, cars and houses were coated with brown sand. Many pedestrians are wearing face masks.
The sand comes from the deserts of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia and storms are common every year, although this is the worst to hit Beijing in 2006.
The storms normally blow out across the Pacific, clouding the skies of South Korea and occasionally reaching as far as the west coast of America.
In a bid to stop the storms, the Chinese authorities have started a tree-planting scheme in desert areas of Inner Mongolia.
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