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Thursday, 7 August 2008
BEIJING - Beijing's main Olympic venues were shrouded in haze on Thursday on the eve of the Games opening ceremony, but organisers insisted air quality would be good for the event.
The new National Stadium, the showpiece venue known as the Bird's Nest where the opening ceremony will be held on Friday, was invisible from nearby roads through a thick layer of smog that has settled on the capital for the past several days.
Up at the Great Wall about 40 kilometres north of the city centre low visibility caused by a greyish haze took the shine off Thursday's leg of the torch relay.
But Sun Weide, spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organising committee, said air quality remained acceptable.
"There is some moisture and fog out there but the air quality today is good," he said.
He said that since the beginning of August air quality had varied from excellent to good and that not one single day had been given a poor grade by Beijing's Environmental Protection Bureau.
"I just spoke to them and today is also graded as a good air quality day," he said.
Beijing's poor air quality has often been cited as one of the main threats to the successful staging of the August 8-24 Games.
Authorities last month removed one million of the city's 3.3 million cars from the roads and shut down more than 100 polluting factories and building sites in an attempt to clear the smog.
Last week the Ministry of Environmental Protection said additional emergency measures could be employed if the move failed to resolve the problem of poor air quality in one of the world's most polluted capitals.
But Sun said the initial measures had resulted in a 20 per cent drop in all the pollution indicators for Beijing and that the air was safe to breathe for the 10,500 athletes competing at the Games.
He said additional emergency measures, which would include banning even more vehicles from Beijing's roads and shutting down more factories, were unlikely to be invoked.
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