Tianjin pollution to be monitored around the clock
Print Edition
CHINA’S environment ministry has put in place a 24-hour monitoring system for pollutants from explosions this month at a port and will report accurate and timely data to the public, it said yesterday.
Environment Minister Chen Jining said monitoring will not let up, with 24-hour checking for air, soil and water pollution.
The ministry will “release monitoring data to the public in a timely manner and accurately,” China Environment News cited him as saying.
The ministry will “accurately respond to focus points and hot topics for society, ensure people’s right to know about environmental information,” the minister said.
A new law that came into effect this year grants the public the right of access to environmental information and also stipulates that officials directly responsible for illegal behavior will be fired.
A dozen people have been detained over the explosions and 11 officials and port executives have been accused of dereliction of duty or abuse of power.
The Party has also sacked Yang Dongliang, who had been a former vice mayor of Tianjin, as head of the national work safety regulator, for suspected corruption, but without making an explicit link to the explosions.
The death toll from the blasts rose to 146 yesterday, with 27 people still listed as missing.
All of the dead — 89 firefighters, nine policemen and 48 others — have been identified.
The missing comprise 15 firefighters, two policemen and 10 others.
Two blasts ripped through a warehouse in Tianjin Port containing large amounts of toxic chemicals, including about 700 tons of sodium cyanide, about 11:30pm on August 12.
No excessive levels of pollutants have been found in the air outside the exclusion zone, but high levels of cyanide were detected from water samples from inside the exclusion zone, with the worst about 28 times the level officially regarded as safe.
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