750'000 people every year said to die prematurely due to pollution in China

A third of a report from the World Bank had to be removed due to pressure from the Chinese Government. The still 151 page report named “Cost of pollution in China” does the rapid economic growth has a price not only to be paid in the future, but even more so every day.

China's Cost of Pollution
The pollution of the water effects the poor the most. Still 115 million people have surface water as their main source of drinking water which leads to diarrheal disease, especially for children.

Smog in Beijing is six times worse than in London. And Beijing is about half as bad as in Tianjin. It is true, the air quality today is much better than it was in 1999 but still far from good.

Still 16 of the 20 most polluted cities worldwide are in China.

The Chinese Government was especially reluctant to remove the number of 750’000 premature deaths due to air pollution and a map of the most affected regions. Financial Times

A retired official of Sepa, China’s State Environment Protection Agency, said some material was omitted from the pollution report because such information on premature deaths “could cause misunderstanding” and “We did not announce these figures. We did not want to make this report too thick”.

Every year:

350,000-400,000 people die due to high air-pollution,
300,000 people die from exposure to poor air indoors and
60,000 die due to poor-quality water, largely in the countryside, from severe diarrhoea, and stomach, liver and bladder cancers.