Staffs at meteorological departments in Beijing are expected to face criminal sanctions for failing to report or wrongly reporting weather information, due to dereliction of duty.

Director of the Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau, Xie Pu, said on Tuesday that skipping over or wrongly reporting important weather information or warnings - which leads to major losses - will constitute a crime.

He added those who lose, destroy or forge meteorological data, because of a lack of responsibility, may also face criminal charges.

The weather department head said that on average Beijing suffers economic losses of over one billion yuan, or US$123 million annually, because of bad weather.

(CRI October 19, 2005)