Efforts afoot to prevent pollution from sandstorms

BEIJING - More efforts are needed to prevent toxic coal-dust storms in China and to protect the public's health, warn environmental activists.

According to a report released by the environmental organization Greenpeace on Wednesday, sandstorms often pick up coal ash and other coal-combustion pollutants when they pass through regions where the coal industry is concentrated in China - places like the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces. The result is toxic coal-dust storms.

Sun Qingwei, a Greenpeace Climate and Energy Campaigner, said such clouds composed in part of toxic substances have serious consequences for the environment in northern and eastern China and threaten the public's health through their deposits of toxic elements.