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Northern China braces for more sandstorms in next 24 hours

04.21.2006, 02:38 AM


BEIJING (AFX) - Northern China is bracing for more sandstorms in the next 24 hours, the state meteorological office said. Along with Beijing and the northern port city of Tianjin, parts of Inner Mongolia and the Ningxia region and Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi and Hebei provinces will be hit by gale-force winds and sand, the office said on its website. The central and western parts of Inner Mongolia will be particularly hard hit, with visibility of less then 1,000 m, it said.


The coming sandstorm will be the 11th to sweep across northern China this year, said the state-run Xinhua news agency. Despite the more frequent sandstorms, the Chinese government has insisted that it will intensify its efforts to clean the air and prepare for the 2008 Olympics by planting broad belts of trees around the city. Desertification is a worrying trend for China, which has around 1.74 mln square km of desertified land, or 18 pct of its total land area.


http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2006/04/21/afx2686282.html