China’s largest steelmaking province, Hebei has once again issued an orange pollution alert on Friday as a wave of smog was expected to blanket the region. The orange alert is the second highest after red in China’s four-tier pollution warning system.
Industrial sites including steel mills, coke plants, and aluminum smelters are ordered to curtail output by at least an average of 30% during the alerts.
The alert will take effect in 11 cities of Hebei province that includes areas like Tangshan, China’s biggest steelmaking city, provincial capital Shijiazhuang and another major steel hub, Handan.
As per the official statement released, cities are ordered to strengthen supervision and inspection measures but they may lift the emergency measures themselves when the air quality improves.
Moderate to severe pollution is expected to be prevalent in central and southern parts of Hebei, which surrounds the capital Beijing, from 17 Feb and could last until around 22 Feb, the statement said.
Over past two years, China has stepped up its efforts to reduce air pollution which becomes particularly severe in winter because of coal burning. Beijing issued its first orange smog alert for the winter in November last year and then in January month also.
The Chinese government has also already sent inspectors to 31 provinces in the last two years and punished 10,000 people for violating environmental protection regulations.
Although the country has dropped blanket production cuts in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei province for localised measures, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) said it would not relax environmental protection targets in 2019.
Leave a Reply