China: Elderly couple loses way to home in smog; keeps roaming around for 9 hours

Nanjing, Dec 5: China's growing pollution is something that has already made world headlines. It not only causes health hazards but also leaves a lesser negative impact of disallowing people to find their own home!

Yes, that's right. In Nanjing, the capital of eastern China's Jiangsu province, the air quality was so bad that an elderly couple who resides in the city got lost on the streets amid dense smog and believe it or not, took nine hours to locate their own home.

According to a report in Shanghaiist, the couple left their residence to buy vegetables around 9 am on a weekday in the last week of November and soon lost their way. They kept on looking for their own house as it was too difficult to differentiate one building from another in the hazy conditions. After wandering around till 6 pm in the evening, they found a pedestrian who called the police to help them out.

The police then managed to contact the couple's daughter who then took her aged parents home, said the report.

Getting lost on the streets in heavy fog is not something new in China and it shows how serious the pollution problem is.

Heavy fog and smog engulfed eastern China in the last week of November causing massive disruptions in transportation services and authorities asked people to stay indoors as much as possible.