The chemicals warehouse explosions in the port city of Tianjin last month reached straight into Yan Hongmei’s apartment, fracturing her mother’s pelvis when a window frame crashed on to her bed. A few days later, rain sprinkled the city with foamy yellowish flecks. The day after that, thousands of dead fish turned riverbanks into a silvery-white mass.

“They say there are no problems now, but what about the future? What if our children will be affected down the road?” she said as she begged officials to buy her home. “We are afraid of the pollution posed by chemicals. Even though they say there is no pollution and it is safe, we still believe pollution exists.”

The fallout in Tianjin — from air, to water, to soil — is mirrored in industrial pollution across China. The thick smog that blocks the sun and causes hospital admissions to rise, often dubbed the “smog-ocalypse”, makes headlines worldwide. Rivers sometimes inexplicably turn red, plagues of dead fish can materialise overnight and algae blooms turn lakes bright green.