Pollution caused by fine-particle dust appears to have engulfed Pyongyang and especially southern parts of North Korea, data published by air quality tracking websites showed on Wednesday.

The toxic conditions come amid days of severe air pollution in neighboring South Korea, which since last Friday has been regularly classed as reaching “very unhealthy” levels by the World Air Quality Index project.

But while citizens in the neighboring South routinely protect their lungs and throats by wearing masks, multiple residents of the DPRK capital told NK News that they had not observed similar behavior in Pyongyang this week.

“Locals here (are) not