Hong Kong Pollution Driving Exodus

Air pollution levels in Hong Kong's three main shopping and business districts were dangerous for more than 2,000 hours last year — the highest figure since the city began taking roadside recordings in 2000.

Hong Kong’s infamous smog has become so severe that it is causing at least 10,000 deaths each year while some choking residents have begun to speak of finding a new home.

Pollution levels rose last year to the highest since records began, prompting about 1 in 5 residents to consider moving away.

A survey conducted by Michael DeGolyer, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, found that 500,000 were “seriously considering or already planning to move.”

The thick smog that often chokes Hong Kong, Macao and neighboring China comes mainly from the huge number of factories in Guangdong province and other ares of southern China.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang has described the improvement of air quality as a "matter of life and death" for the former British Crown colony.

But leaders have yet to introduce new air quality standards 20 years after the current set was established.