Yellow Dust Attacks South Korea, A Serious Warning!

Cycling in Korea, Arctic to Argentina 2012, TBS 101.3 eFM Seoul, Korea from Brian Perich on Vimeo.

Dave B. April 8 at 9:44am

Dang!!!!! What is the "yellow dust"? Sounds like Korea is taking

its toll on you! Rest up! I will try to get some shots of your bike

in the next week or so. You sure you want it taken out of the

nice packaged box????

Sent via Facebook Mobile

Brian 브라이안 Perich April 8 at 10:35am

Take a ride!!! And get photos!!! That bike is designed for

60,000km+ (40,000 mile+) rides, service it, and keep riding!!!

If you take detailed pictures of the kit (tools, extras included),

closeups of the components, etc

.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Dust Follow the link,

you'll see the HELL I've been going through for the past

1.5 months...

Brian in Gangneung

Asian Dust - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org

Asian Dust (also yellow dust, yellow sand, yellow wind

or China dust storms) is a seasonal meteorological

phenomenon which affects much of East Asia sporadically

during the springtime months....

Brian 브라이안 Perich April 8 at 11:02am

Effects

Dust deposition in Beijing during the 2006 season.
Areas affected by the dust experience decreased visibility

and the dust is known to cause a variety of health problems,

not limited to sore throat and asthma in otherwise healthy

people. Often, people are advised to avoid or minimize

outdoor activities, depending on severity of storms. For those

already with asthma or respiratory infections, it can be fatal.

The dust has been shown to increase the daily mortality rate

in one affected region by 1.7%. Although sand itself is not

necessarily harmful to soil, due to sulphur emissions and the

resulting acid rain, the storms also destroy farmland by

degrading the soil, and deposits of ash and soot and heavy

metals as well as potentially dangerous biomatter blanket

the ground with contaminants including croplands, aquifers,

etc. The dust storms also affect wildlife particularly hard,

destroying crops, habitat, and toxic metals interfering with

reproduction. Coral are hit particularly hard. Toxic metals

progagate up the food chain, from fish to higher mammals.

Air visibility is reduced, including canceled flights, ground

travel, outdoor activities, and can be correlated to significant

loss of economic activity. Japan has reported washed clothes

stained yellow. Korea Times has reported it costing 3 million

won (US $3,000), 6000 gallons of water, and 6 hours to simply

clean one jumbo jet.

Dave B. April 9 at 12:47am

Wow!!!! You would think they (Korea/china) would care

about their emissions? But hey all they care about is

cheap labor and trying to make a buck off it!

Sent via Facebook Mobile

Brian 브라이안 Perich April 9 at 4:20am

Yeah, I don't think the Chinese were/are thinking,

this dust is coming from the growing wasteland in

the Gobi Desert. Since the Chinese long-ago deforested

many bordering regions, the Gobi Desert actually grew

larger and uncontrollable desertification is the direct

result. With massive storms (wind and sand storms)

every spring that sand and dust sweeps across all of

East and Southeast Asia (Northwesterly winds). My lungs

are still jacked 5 weeks later, 4 different broad-spectrum

antibiotics, allergy pills, respiratory therapy, and about

7 doctor visits (ENT-Ear Nose and Throat Specialist).

The doctor's office has a regular cue of about 20 people

continuously throughout the day, and he's making a back

off each and every customer (subsidized by the government...

the visit is about $2.50 and medication can run about $5.00

which is reasonable to walk-in and see a specialist without

an appointment and the pharmaceudicals are cheap in Korea).

But who the hell wants to be sick all the time, dependent

on drugs to fight the infections deep down in the lungs,

and have exposure to cancer-inducing toxic materials and

biohazard materials (picked up across China's vast industrial

wasteland)??? Not me, and I'm fighting for my life, drain of

my energy that should be spent in spring training, not to

mention the 5 weeks of diarrhea as a bonus, as the antibiotics

destroy all the healthy bacteria in the digestive system,

you deal with that outcome on top of everything else.

In short, it's a total f&^%ing nightmare out there in the air,

it's the dust you can't see that will kill you if your pushing

hard on the lungs doing continuous aerobic activity.

I'm staying indoors so I won't have to cough up a

lung or start chemo-therapy for cancer in the

near-future, however, if I keep training outdoors

here in this season, I might as well start digging my

early grave!

This serious seasonally occurring health and environmental

problem lays destruction in it's wake. Dave, I could go on

and on, it's like being kicked in the chest by a horse, choked

by a boa constrictor, and food poisoned all packed into one.

I'm definitely planning an escape route for the expedition in

2012-2013, this is a powerful experience to live through to

try to recover on the other side (North, Central, and South

America) while riding my bicycle for healthy renewal/charity

funding/non-profit two-wheeling. Well, I'm about prepped

for mid-term examinations now, still thinking about

riding this weekend, but wondering what it will cost

me to do it, a few more days of my life shaved off???

Thanks China! We are watching that nation destroy the Earth

piece by plastic/manufactured/toxic producing piece, and it's

not getting better over here in Korea either, we lay our own

waste into the sky through filthy industrial practices, fossil fuels,

and 50 million people moving about in a very small landmass.

The whole world is producing and consuming waste, we will

reap what we continue to sow, and it tastes like an industrial

farm that's killing us slowly.

It's time to THINK GREEN, REDUCE, REUSE (I mean it),

and WALK or CYCLE, start using HPV's

(Human Powered Vehicles) or alternative fuels

(Hydrogen, Solar Power) as a way to reduce,

recycle, and reuse the limited "clean-burn" resources

we have left on this Earth....

A living planet that is being trashed by humans.

The Korean Peninsula extends for about 1,000 kilometers

southward from the northeast Asian continental landmass.

Roughly 300 kilometers in width, climate variations are more

pronounced along the south-north axis. Due to these variations,

marked differences in plant vegetation can be seen along this axis.

Generally speaking, the southern half of the peninsula is warmer

than the northern half.

The total area of the peninsula, including the islands, is 22,154

square kilometers of which about 45 percent (99,313 square kilometers), excluding the area in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), constitutes

the territory of South Korea.

News Updates on the Yellow Dust in South Korea

(US Military Monitoring system) which tends to be

"shutdown" or blocked by Korean/US authorities when

levels are at danger levels...we've seen the index well

over 500 this year alone, not a place for humans living

green, a place for machines and refuse.
http://www.korea.amedd.army.mil/webapp/yellowSand/Default.asp

Peace Dave, this is a great blog update, I will post there later!

Brian Perich "Dust can kill you, LOL!"

www.korea.amedd.army.mil

www.korea.amedd.army.mil