BEIJING (Sputnik) — China decided to expand environmental checks to cover all 34 provinces of the state in 2017 in contrast to only 15 inspected administrative divisions in the previous year amid severe air pollution in the country, media reported Monday citing the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).
The MEP’s environmental inspections will assess the situation in each region pushing local government to fulfill their environmental duties, the Xinhua news agency reported.
According to the agency, in 2016 the environmental inspectors investigated 33,000 cases of alleged environment-related wrongdoing detaining 720 people and imposing fines totaling 440 million yuans (about $64 million).
The environmental problems in China pose serious threat to the nation’s health, with 1.6 million people in the country dying annually from diseases related to air pollution, meaning that the poor environmental situation kills on average about 4,000 people in the country each day, according to the survey conducted by scientists from the University of California.
