Only 6 cities meet latest air quality standard
Print Edition
ONLY nine of 161 Chinese cities reached the new — and stricter — air quality monitoring standards in the first half of the year, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
The six were named as Zhoushan, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Zhanjiang, Yunfu, Beihai, Sanya and Lhasa.
In 2012, the government issued a new air standard, under which local authorities are required to monitor ozone, carbon monoxide, PM2.5, PM10, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.
Most of the cities using the standard are in north China’s Hebei Province and neighboring Beijing, Tianjin, the Yangtze River Delta in the east and the Pearl River Delta in the south.
The ministry ranks and publishes the air quality indices of 74 major cities on a monthly basis.
Compared to last year, air quality in those areas has improved. In the year through June, the number of days on which the standard was met rose to 60 percent from 59 percent in the same period of 2013, according to the ministry.
Meanwhile, 56 mines have been shut down in Hebei, which is home to the country’s smoggiest cities.
They include 10 illegal mines and 46 others located within 300 meters of an expressway or rail line, said Wei Fenghua, an official with the Hebei Land and Resources Department.
In April, provincial authorities launched a campaign to make its mines less polluting and stop them operating near densely populated areas, targeting 632 mines close to railways, expressways and cities.
Aside from the mines that were closed, 251 failed to meet environmental standards and production was suspended.
They have since undergone a program of remedial action, Wei said yesterday, adding that 325 others are awaiting assessment.
Hebei has 14,000 mining sites, which are a major contributor to air pollution.
The province had seven of the 10 most polluted cities in China in the first half of the year, the environment ministry said.
Beijing and its surrounding areas, including Tianjin and Hebei, reported the heaviest pollution, though the number of days that met national air standards rose by 3.2 percent compared with the same period of last year.
Authorities in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei said they plan to cut PM2.5 densities by 25 percent from 2012 levels by 2017.
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