Beijing steps up air pollution law enforcement

Xinhua: Beijing has launched a "zero-hour" campaign for enforcing the city's first air pollution prevention regulation, which came into effect on Saturday. Over 400 environmental monitoring staff began work at 12 a.m. Saturday to conduct a scrutiny on industrial emissions and dust.

Among the 617 plants and firms inspected, 25 received fines for discharging excessive emissions and 11 others for improper treatment of dust. When inspectors arrived at the Hongxiang Heat Co. Ltd. in Changping District, they found emission from roaring coal-fired heating boilers were discharging sulfur dioxide with a density of 350 milligrams per cubic meter, which is seven times more than the city's permitted level.

Zhong Chonglei, captain of the municipal environmental inspection team, said according to the regulation, the company should be given a fine of between 80,000 yuan (13,018 U.S. dollars) and 100,000 yuan. The fine will be doubled if the company fails a further check in a month.

Beijing's local law on air pollution prevention is widely regarded as a test of the government's resolve to solve air pollution problems. It legislates penalties from hefty fines to imprisonment for polluters, and, for the first time, sets a ceiling on total emissions of major pollutants. A previous guideline targeted only growth of emissions....

Beijing's mayor urges "all-out effort" to curb air pollution

Sui-Lee Wee in Reuters: Beijing's mayor pledged on Thursday to cut coal use by 2.6 million tonnes and set aside 15 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) to improve air quality this year as part of the city's "all-out effort" to tackle air pollution, state news agency Xinhua said.

The announcement by Wang Anshun came as the capital was blanketed in its worst smog in months. An index measuring PM2.5 particles, especially bad for health, reached 500 in much of the capital in the early hours.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers a level above 300 hazardous. Coal-burning boilers inside Beijing's fifth ring road - covering the built-up area of the city - will be eliminated and measures taken against coal burning in the capital's periphery, Xinhua quoted Wang as saying.

The city also aims to ban all heavily polluting vehicles this year, cut new car registrations and promote new energy vehicles, Wang said....

Heavy smog in Tianamen Square, shot by McKay Savage, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Dangerous pollution hits China's capital

Terra Daily via AFP: China's capital was shrouded in dangerous smog on Thursday, cutting visibility down to a few hundred metres as a count of small particulate pollution reached more than 25 times recommended levels.

A grey haze filled the sky, leaving an industrial, burning smell hanging in the air as PM2.5 reached over 500 micrograms per cubic metre in parts of Beijing, according to official statistics. Figures from the US embassy, which also monitors air quality, reached more than 671 in the early morning. The WHO recommends an exposure level of no more than 25 over a 24-hour period.

The official air quality index reached the top of the scale at 500. China's cities are often hit by heavy pollution, blamed on coal-burning by power stations and industry, as well as vehicle use, and it has become a major source of discontent with the ruling Communist Party.

"I can't believe how bad it is," said US tourist Richard Deutsch in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, which was shrouded in heavy smog. "I have never experienced air this bad," said Deutsch, who is from Vermont. "It's worse than LA. I feel kind of bad for the people. It's taking years off their life."...

Smog in Beijing's Forbidden City, shot by Brian Jeffery Beggerly, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Beijing disaster necessitates risk analysis

Liu Tao in China. org: In our country, which is famous for its ability to mobilize, we have always been able to recover from the deadliest of natural disasters with coordinated rescue efforts and national unity. However, most people cannot believe that a tragedy like the recent Beijing floods could happen in a super-modern city - the core area of our nation, during the recent unexpected rainstorm.

The rainstorm in Beijing caught people off guard, reflecting that our city infrastructure and disaster prevention capabilities are lagging behind, and our risk prevention strategies cannot match the pace of our cities' rapid pace of development.

...German sociologist Ulrich Beck affirmed that modern society is a risk-oriented society. In the pre-modern era, as people were mainly living in the countryside, social risk was also decentralized. Only during the process of modern industrialization, when people started to migrate to the industrial centers and formed ultra-large cities, social risk started to become centralized around urban areas.

With the centralization of the population, cities are facing not only facing the increasing threats of industrial pollution, environmental deterioration and a rise in crime rates, but also are more prone to natural disasters, civil unrest and terrorism.

Geographic location and level of infrastructure development largely affects a city or region's flood risk. Places at lower altitude, regions with underdeveloped infrastructure or urban-rural fringe zones can be considered severe-risk areas. Therefore, we need to conduct detailed risk evaluations of urban areas and their surroundings. The evaluation should be based on the "urban risk structure" and "risk probability" and cover every region to eradicate the blind spots. Relevant quantitative research and statistical models for risk management also need to be established....

Beijing, viewed by NASA's Landsat satellite

Ten dead as record rain pounds Beijing

AFP: The heaviest rain to hit Beijing in 61 years left at least 10 people dead over the weekend, while more downpours were forecast for northeast and southwest China, according to state media. Torrential rain pounded the capital all day Saturday, leading to the evacuation of more than 30,000 people, mostly from Beijing's outlying mountainous districts, the Xinhua news agency said.

A policeman who was electrocuted by a fallen power line during a rescue operation was among the fatalities, while others were killed in traffic accidents and roof collapses, it said. One woman died after her car was engulfed with water in an underpass on Beijing's central second ring road that was flooded with up to three metres (10 feet) of water.

The death toll could rise with media reports Sunday saying numerous people, including rescue workers, were missing. Meanwhile three bodies were recovered Sunday in Beijing's mountainous Fangshan region where several landslides were reported, China National Radio reported.

It was not immediately clear if the three were already counted in the death toll. The government flood control headquarters told AFP that damage assessments were ongoing. Up to 46 centimetres (more than 18 inches) of rain fell in Fangshan district, the most rain to hit the city in a 14-hour period since records began in 1951, Xinhua said.

The average rainfall throughout the capital during the period amounted to 16.4 centimetres, the report said, citing the Beijing meteorological bureau. Numerous roads in the city were submerged under up to a metre of water, while 475 flights were cancelled....

A 2005 rain in Beijing, shot by Shizhao, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license