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FILE PHOTO: Labors work on a pile of iron ore at a steel factory in Tangshan in China's Hebei Province November 3, 2015. Picture taken November 3, 2015. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
The northern Chinese city of Tangshan, China's top steel production hub, will launch a level-2 emergency response from Friday amid a forecast of heavy air pollution, it said on its WeChat account on Thursday.
Separately, the municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau of Handan, another steel production hub in northern China, announced it will introduce the same level of emergency response from Friday.
Local steel mills will typically be required to curb production amid the emergency actions.
It is unclear when the pollution controls in both cities will be lifted. (Reporting by Amy Lv and Dominique Patton in Beijing; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)