Falsifying air quality data intolerable

ON SATURDAY, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment revealed at a news conference that local officials of Linfen city, North China's Shanxi province, falsified the local air quality data. Beijing News comments:

Some media reports describe in detail how the Linfen officials falsified the data. As the air quality monitoring stations are directly run by the central government, the local officials hired people to cover the air sampling devices of six local monitoring stations with wet cloths, so that the measured density of pollutants became lower. In order to avoid being seen by the cameras, they prepared gloves, hats and helmets, and even tried to hack the computers of the monitoring stations.

In March, the monitoring stations found the data were abnormal so they reported to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. The police and judiciary quickly did their jobs, and the 16 people involved were found guilty by the local court on May 30.