Chinese officials find 21 companies violating pollution norms

Chinese pollution inspectors have found problems relating to air quality in 21 companies and construction sites in two days, authorities said today.
The air quality inspection teams were sent to check more than 2,100 monitoring spots in 28 cities in the Beijing- Tianjin-Hebei region and neighbouring areas, including Shanxi, Shandong and Henan provinces, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).
On Friday and yesterday, six companies in Hebei province, four in Shanxi and one in Henan failed to implement requirements to suspend or limit production under orange alerts for heavy air pollution, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Eight construction sites failed to stop the work and two companies were found to have emission levels higher than allowed.

China has defined pollution control as one of the "three tough battles" for the next three years, according to the central economic work conference.
China has a four-tier colour-coded warning system for severe weather, with red being the most serious, followed by orange, yellow and blue.