Chinese officials questioned after cotton wool shoved in equipment to monitor air pollution: report
One official in Xian also accused of doctoring smog data stored on a computer to massage the figures, according to newspaper report
Three environmental officials in northern China have been questioned by the police after air quality tests were allegedly doctored by putting cotton wool in the sampling equipment to filter out impurities, according to a newspaper report.
One official in Xian in Shaanxi province is also accused of manipulating air pollution data stored in a computer, the Huashang Daily reported.
Environmental protection officials around China are under pressure to take measures to improve air quality after the central government announced two years ago that it had “declared war on pollution”.
The allegations of fiddling test results have been made against the director of the Chang’an bureau of Xian’s environmental protection agency, plus the director and deputy director of the air sampling station in the district, according to the report.
The director of the air sampling station sneaked into the station several times to manipulate data on computer after the station moved to part of the Xian University of Posts and Telecommunications, the newspaper said.
The centre is also overseen by the China National Environmental Monitoring Centre and officials became suspicious after a sudden improvement in the quality of the data.