And earlier we talked to our reporter in north China's Shanxi Province on heating supply problems being faced there.

The latest is that the heating supply in the city of Linfen in north China's Shanxi Province now has some new problems. According to a notice put up on Wednesday by the local heating plant named Haizi Heating Plant, they stopped the heating supply in the eastern area of the city due to their shortage of gas. That means around a quarter of the city's residents have been affected. And the Haizi Heating Plant responded that they have been working to restore the heating supply by reconnecting the heating pipelines to other heating plants, and they said the heating supply in the eastern part of the city will be restored by Thursday night.

And Linfen is among many cities in northern China that have been encountering problems of heating supply after the shift from coal to gas. Problems including unfinished new heating systems, delayed heating supply, inefficient heating plants due to technical problems and shortage of gas have been frequently reported in this winter. Although the local governments have carried out some emergency measures including providing heating equipment and subsidies to cover the electricity cost, the local residents just can't stop complaining as the temperature continues to fall.

And to address all these issues, China's Environment Protection Ministry also released a document on Monday to call on the local governments of the northern cities to make more efforts to tackle these problems and ensure the residents have sufficient heating supply in this winter.