The photo taken on Oct. 29, 2010 shows the ariel view of the stadium of University Town in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province. It will host the football and rugby match of the 16th Asian Games. (Xinhua/Liu Dawei)
GUANGZHOU, Nov.6 (Xinhua) -- After numerous pollution-control remedies failed, a decade-old thermal power plant in Guangzhou was finally closed on the eve of the Asiad Games.
Flames from the boilers have died away, chimneys stopped releasing foul smoke, and local officials are already considering turning the factory building into a new cultural center.
"We respect the government's call to shut the factory, since it's all for the goal of having 'green Asian Games'," said Chen Yong, former vice general manager of the closed Yuancun Thermal Power Plant.
The Yuancun power plant was located in Guangzhou, the host city of the 2010 Asian Games in south China's Guangdong Province.
However, as Guangzhou prepared for the Games, it had to eliminate its overwhelming pollution, which has long tarnished the image of this Chinese industrial star.
Ding Hongdu, head of the Guangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau, said when he assumed the job in 2004, the city's environmental conditions were "upsetting."
"Leaves were coated in a thick layer of black soot on which you could leave your fingerprints," said Ding.
This was at the time when Guangzhou won the application for hosting the 2010 Asian Games, six years before Ding and his colleagues were required to present a clean city of Guangzhou to the world.
To fulfill the mission, Ding said, the city government has been resolute and "iron-fisted" in cracking down on pollution over the past six years.
During that time, more than 6,000 factories were ordered to undergo overhauls, and 147 factories that repeatedly failed pollution tests were shut or moved, according to Ding.
Less efficient coal boilers were also removed from factories, and 57 enterprises have been updated with new equipment that uses clean energy.
In addition, a package of air-quality improvement measures were introduced this year, as the Games, scheduled from Nov.12 to 27, neared.
