Sunlight in Tokyo on Sunday afternoon was momentarily blocked off when a wide-scale dust storm surrounded the city, a day before the second year anniversary of the equally fatal 9.03 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan's northeastern and eastern portions on March 11, 2011.

Although the dust came from China, experts from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said it bore no correlation at all to the latter country's severe air pollution.

"A rapidly developing low pressure system in the north was moving down south. It was bringing a snow storm in the north, and strong winds in Tokyo and surrounding areas," a meteorologist from the JMA said.

"In the Kanto region (Tokyo and surrounding areas), the strong winds picked up dry dust particles from the ground, which lowered visibility," he said.

The temperature in Japan's capital dropped 10 degrees as the dust storm surrounded the city.

But the JMA assured the condition is only temporary as this will be ultimately cleaned out by the expected rainfall afterwards.

Although dust storms are not new to residents of Japan, people have expressed concerns after Japanese researchers noted the storms' number and severity have grown and multiplied in the last 20 years. 

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