Environmental inspections show their effectiveness

More officials have been held to account for violations found in central environmental inspections, raising the total number of punished officials to more than 12,000, according to the country's top environmental watchdog.

Most recently, 1,035 officials from eight provincial regions, including Jilin, Zhejiang and Sichuan provinces, were called to account for their involvement in 89 environmental violations uncovered in the fourth round of inspections from August to September 2017, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said in a news release on Monday.

Among the officials, 218 are in positions at the prefecture level, which is just below ministerial level, and 320 hold posts equivalent to county head, the ministry said.