(File photo of a woman walking past the Ministry of Environmental Protection)

More than 2,000 officials in eight provincial regions in China have been punished for malpractice or failure to act in service of environmental protection. This comes one month after inspectors from the central government conducted a supervisory tour of the regions.

Most of the guilty officials were punished for failing to properly address reported environmental problems. In Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, several officials from the Yongning County government were disciplined for reporting false information about emissions from a local factory. Officials in Pizhou, Jiangsu province were given warnings for lax supervision.

More than 100 people were put under criminal detention for causing ecological damage and pollution. The total fines assigned to the law-breakers could exceed 100 million yuan.

The first batch of inspections begam in mid-July and ended on Aug. 19. The inspected regions were Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Henan and Yunnan provinces, along with Inner Mongolia, Guangxi Zhuang and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Regions.

In Jiangsu province alone, some 2,111 companies were ordered to rectify their operations, with a total penalty of 78.1 million yuan. Jiangxi province collected penalties totaling 22.3 million yuan, with 38 people placed under administrative detention and another 15 under criminal detention.