China’s smoggiest cities have pledged to ramp up the battle on pollution after air quality deteriorated in the first few months of this year, the China Daily reported yesterday, as smog blanketed Beijing and the surrounding region.
Top officials from seven districts in Beijing, Tianjin and cities in Hebei and Shanxi provinces were scolded on Saturday by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection for lax control of pollution this year, the newspaper said.
The officials promised to submit plans to resolve the problem within 20 days, it said.
The toxic smog blanketing Beijing and surrounding cities yesterday forced Tianjin, Tangshan and Langfang in Hebei Province and Puyang and Anyang in Henan to issue an orange alert, the second-highest level after red, as pollution reached hazardous levels.
An orange alert means the air quality index, a measure of air pollutants, is forecast to exceed 150 for three consecutive days.
In Beijing, where the authorities issued a yellow alert, the index reading was 264, the city’s environmental protection agency said.
Hebei, home to six of China’s 10 smoggiest cities in the first two months of this year, on Saturday said it would take more action to shut “backward” coal-fired power plants, promote new energy vehicles and shift industries.
The ministry’s warning followed a month-long inspection that turned up severe violations, ministry head of inspections Liu Changgen (劉長根) said, according to the newspaper.
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