Beijing to provide hourly reports on air pollution amid growing outcry

The Chinese capital began releasing hourly air pollution data on Thursday to address growing public concern over air quality.

 The Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center will publish readings for the levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and PM 10 - particulate matter smaller than 10 micrograms - detected by its 27 air quality monitoring stations.

 The data, released hourly on the center's website and micro blog, "is provided to better serve the residents of the capital", said Zhao Yue, deputy director of the center.

 Residents generally hailed the move, but some said more needs to be done.

Readings for more pollutants will be announced after stricter air quality standards are adopted in the future, Zhao said.

According to the center, Beijing will set up more than two dozen monitoring stations to detect the density of PM 2.5 before Spring Festival, which falls on Jan 23. That will be ahead of the national schedule of 2016.

When severe smog grounded more than 100 flights on Tuesday, the highest density of inhalable particles in the southern and central city was between 300 and 560 micrograms a cubic meter, while the figure in the north was between 30 and 80.