Beijing's environmental authority says it has taken more timely measures to deal with hazardous smog under the city's second red alert, toward which the public has taken a milder attitude than they did toward the first-ever red alert earlier this month.
In anticipation of three consecutive days of heavy smog, the Chinese capital issued its second red alert on Friday. Smog is forecast to shroud many northern Chinese cities, including Beijing, from Saturday to Tuesday.
The latest red alert was issued 11 hours earlier than the previous one, while measures such as limiting the number of vehicles on roads through odd-even license plate restrictions and banning fireworks and outdoor barbecues have been in force since 7 am Saturday morning.
Wang Bin, head of the Emergency Response Division of the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, said Saturday that measures were enacted in advance to lessen the pollution's impact and help the public prepare for the upcoming smog, which is forecast to be worse than the bout that prompted the previous red alert, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
"The first red alert gave Beijing authorities valuable experience in dealing with air pollution. The government has taken more effective and timely measures to deal with the red alert than it did previously," Wang Gengchen, a research fellow at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the Global Times. Wang added that the public's milder attitude about the latest red alert reflects a rational and resolute attitude toward curbing air pollution.
Odd-even license plate restrictions are normally implemented only on weekdays, but under the second red alert, half of the city's private cars were banned from the roads over the weekend, Beijing-based newspaper the Mirror reported.
Meanwhile, Beijing authorities sent inspection teams to supervise the implementation of measures related to the red alert on Saturday. Some 22,300 cars were found violating the odd-even license plate restrictions, the environmental protection bureau reported Saturday.
The government's measures appear to have mitigated the pollution. According to data released by the Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center on Sunday, some areas in Beijing's Haidian district such as the Beijing Botanical Gardens saw an AQI index under 200, below the heavy pollution threshold.
