Reports said a heavy smog had enveloped the city exactly one month before the Games start. According to tests by the BBC, Beijing failed to meet the World Health Organisation’s air quality guidelines for the airborne particles known as PM10 on six days out of seven.
But Beijing’s Environmental Protection Bureau said it was not worried. "We have confidence that we will ensure air quality," AP reported Zhai Xiaohui, an official at the bureau, as saying.
From July 1, 300,000 highly polluting vehicles were banned from the capital. Some factories and enterprises have also been temporarily shut down.
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