XN000022-1996-02-12 — Page 22

L

- 21 -

Water storage figure

Storage in Hong Kong's reservoirs at 9 am today (Monday) stood at 79.6 per cent of capacity or 466.416 million cubic metres.

This time last year the reservoirs contained 408.288 million cubic metres of water, representing 69.7 per cent of capacity.

End

Air Quality Report for January

The Environmental Protection Department today (Monday) released air quality information for January.

The purpose of the announcement is to keep the public informed of the air quality levels in the territory and to

explain the measurements.

The

announcement contains monitoring results from Mong Kok, Central/Western and Kwai Chung, which represent three important land use types in the territory:

**

locations close to road traffic in built-up urban areas, combined commercial and residential districts, and

districts close to industrial areas.

The reported air pollutants include sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), total suspended particulates (TSP) which comprise all sizes of dust particles, and the respirable fraction of the dust (RSP).

All these pollutants can affect respiratory health in sufficient concentration.

In January, there was one exceedance of the 24-hour Air Quality Objectives (AQO) and one measurement almost reaching the AQO limit at the three monitoring stations.