Officials from the seven municipalities and provinces near Beijing will be held accountable if more than three consecutive heavily polluted days occur in the coming winter as a result of their poor performance in prevention, said Ding Xiangyang, deputy-secretary-general of the State Council, on Tuesday.

Ding said the possibility of pollution grows gradually as winter approaches, especially in northern China, where a large amount of inferior coal is burned during the heating season, polluting the atmosphere.

Ding was speaking at a regional meeting held in Beijing.

He urged officials from Beijing and Tianjin as well as Hebei, Shanxi, Liaoning and Shandong provinces and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region to prepare for pollution control and emergency response, such as consulting regionally when large areas of pollution occur and making plans as early as possible to cope with situations such as the massive pollution in the region that lasted for most of January.