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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A total of 124 Chinese cities joined urban centers around the world in turning off the lights of their landmark buildings on Saturday night, as part of an environmental initiative of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Initiated by the WWF in 2007, the "Earth Hour" project calls on all the people in the world to turn off their lights for a spell on the evening of the last Saturday of March every year, to promote energy-saving and sustainable development. At 8:30 p.m., the lights were turned out at major sites in Beijing, like the Great Wall at Badaling, the Water Cube and the National Stadium, placing the city among 5,000 urban centers in more than 140 countries to take part in Earth Hour. In Shanghai, lights were shut off at the municipal and district government offices and major buildings at the city center's Renmin Square during the one-hour period. Meanwhile, five main structures of the Shanghai 2010 World Expo park entered darkness, marking the first time that world expo facilities joined the Earth Hour project. Also in some cities, many residents turned off lights. "After seeing a poster promoting Earth Hour inside the elevator, our family decided to switch off the lights for an hour," said a woman, surnamed Zhang, in the southwestern city of Chengdu. |
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