Is pretty damned Dickensian.

From the BBC story:

"When it comes to this time of year, one quarter of students get respiratory diseases," says the head teacher, Zhao Xiangjing.

"We sometimes give them shots to try to prevent them all getting ill. But we always have someone coughing."

This small village, Ge Zhuo Tou, is in the middle of China's central Shanxi province. It is the heart of the country's coal belt.

All around, coal-fired power stations provide energy for the much of the rest of the country.

But it comes at a price. China suffers from some of the worst pollution in the world. ...

An oxygen cylinder stands in the corner of the one-room house belonging to 73-year-old Zhang Mingzhi. He suffers from lung disease.

He lies in bed, his face swollen, barely able to move. His wife, Feng Lingmei, has to spoon-feed him. Her eyes are red.

"The air is so bad," she says. "On winter days like this, he can't go out, he gets worse, he just can't breathe."