China assessing emergence plans to fight heavy pollution

The Ministry of Environmental Protection said yesterday that inspections had found some cities failing to take effective measures following alerts or their measures were impracticable.

New Delhi: In order to curb the rise in heavy pollution prevailing in China, the authorities are evaluating and trying to implement emergency measures to fight pollution.

China's environmental ministry said it is evaluating 20 cities' emergency plans hoping to improve their response ability, Chen Jining, minister of environmental protection, made the remarks at a press conference, noting that the cities include Beijing, Tianjin and 18 other cities in Hebei and surrounding provinces.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection said yesterday that inspections had found some cities failing to take effective measures following alerts or their measures were impracticable.

Though pollution in Beijing exceeded hazardous levels for the past several days, the city has not issued the red alert, the maximum warning which would warrant enforcement of odd and even number car system, closure of schools factories emitting pollution as construction sites.

Instead the city officials stuck to orange alert below the red which drew criticism from netizens.

Critics say besides use of coal for heating during winter, the pollution levels shot up in the last few weeks as factories ramped up their production ahead of the Chinese New Year later this month during which they have to shut down for prolonged period as workers would to their villages.

China has a four-tier colour-coded warning system for severe weather, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

The minister said the government will enhance supervision on whether local governments have implemented the precautions.

(With PTI inputs)