A Chinese woman wearing a mask walks past cars coated with a layer of dust in Beijing, China, Monday, April 17, 2006. An overnight dust storm covered large areas of the Chinese capital in fine dust, prompting residents to spend the morning cleaning up.

China ? A sandstorm has covered Beijing in a blanket of ochre-colored dust.

Each spring, sandstorms fed by the deserts of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia blow toward Beijing and the eastern seaboard. Sometimes, the dust blows out across the Pacific, clouding the skies of South Korea and occasionally drifting as far as the U.S. West Coast.

Monday’s storm was the eighth – and the worst – to hit Beijing this year, with sand granules being much larger than normal dust particles in the city’s air, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing Wang Xiaoming, an official with the city’s environment protection bureau.

Above, a Chinese woman wearing a mask walks past cars coated with a layer of the dust in Beijing. Many residents had to spend Monday morning cleaning up.