Beijing embraces lunar New Year

After overnight firework spree:

[Lunar year]

* Municipal Government lifted its bans to allow holiday celebrations with firecrackers

* About 3,000 police officers patrolling neighborhoods together with security personnel

CHINA: This is the fifth year that the Municipal Government lifted its bans to allow holiday celebrations with firecrackers at designated time and venues as a result of public appeal to be more observant of traditional holiday customs.

Sources with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau said that a security force involving 880,000 people including 25,000 police officers, 13,000 armed police and militia as well as 84,2000 civilians have been deployed Saturday night to safeguard New Year Eve. The total is twice as many as that mobilized for New Year's Eve on the Gregorian calendar.

The first thing Qiwen did when she woke up Sunday on the first morning of the Year of Tiger was to run towards the windows. As she found trees and houses standing tall, safe and sound, the four-year-old cracked a smile. In her first outdoor venture on a Chinese New Year Eve at Saturday night, the little girl huddled up against her mother in attempt to cushion earsplitting firecrackers while taking safe peeks at the lightened up sky.

But she quickly requested for a retreat as chilly wind, pungent powder and continuous bangs turned her neighborhood into an unfamiliar place. Frowning and nervous, she whispered: "Mum, can trees and houses hold their own? What about the Earth?"

As positive answers to the riddles in her heart got confirmed, the girl ignored the call to have "jiaozi", or dumplings, a kind of conventional food eaten in the first day of the Chinese New Year, pestering her parents for another bout of fireworks show.

About 3,000 police officers fanned out patrolling neighborhoods together with security personnel. Forty-one SWAT soldiers were posted along the Chang'an Street, downtown areas within the Second Ring Road.

Between Midnight and 1 a.m. Sunday, 24 criminal cases were reported to the city police via telephone hotline 110, the lowest record of the year.

To rapidly respond to fire alarms, fire-fighting departments arranged eight fire engines as a reserve force on the Fifth Ring Road. Another 27 were deployed in heavily-populated residential areas.

The police also employed satellite vehicles and video systems to make a quick response in case of emergencies.

From 23:45 Saturday to 0:15 Sunday, seventy-one streets were closed so that residents could set off fireworks, comparing 100 at Spring Festival last year.

Zhou Zhengyu, director of the Municipal Government's Fireworks Management Office said that by 1:00 a.m Sunday, 52 people were injured, up 44 percent year on year. But all injuries were minor, with no deaths, or cases of eyeball removal or amputation of body parts being reported.

Beijing, Sunday, Xinhua