Former anchor Chai Jing became a household name through her in-depth investigative reporting for China Central Television of national news stories such as the SARS outbreak, Wenchuan earthquake and coal mine accidents.

Having taken time off to have a daughter she has now ended her self-imposed exile with a self-funded documentary about smog called Under The Dome.

Gruesome pictures of withered trees, murky skies and lifeless rivers appear but the film also shows a scientific perspective backed by data, field investigations at home and abroad and interviews with officials, scientists and the general public.

Beijing had 175 polluted days in 2014, eclipsed by neighboring Tianjin with 197 and Shijiazhuang with 264 days.

Satellite pictures from NASA demonstrate worsening air quality in northern China over the past 10 years.

Chai, again exhibiting her skills as a story teller, illustrates these statistics by taking the examples of tearful babies battling pneumonia, caused, according to their mothers, by bad air and a woman in her 50s undergoing surgery at Beijing Cancer Hospital.

The burning of coal and oil contributes to 60 percent of PM2.5 pollutants, or airborne particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter that penetrate the lungs, building the statistical background for her to question the country's energy consumption habits.

China burnt 360 million tons of coal in 2013, more than the rest of the world combined, but much of the energy has been wasted in ill-performing steel factories which rely on government subsidy for survival, according to the film.

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• Smog inspires environmental official to write novel
• Beijing, neighboring regions issue smog alert

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