A FIRE in New Territory District in Hong Kong, which sent heavy smoke across the border to Shenzhen on Sunday, didn’t pose a health danger to local residents, Shenzhen’s environmental monitoring station said Sunday.

    The fire at a used electronic products recycling facility in Hong Kong at 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon sent heavy smoke and an irritating smell to Shenzhen.

    Photos on microblogs showed that the heavy smoke, which was labeled a “black rainbow” by netizens, riffing on its stark contrast with the bright blue sky, floated across the border to Nanshan and Futian districts Sunday afternoon.

    Some netizens feared the smoke may have polluted Shenzhen’s air. Shenzhen’s air quality monitoring center said the air quality in Nanshan District remained normal. Hong Kong officials confirmed that the fire, which covered an area of 400 square meters in the electronic products recycling facility, was put out at around 8:40 p.m. Sunday.

    This was the second stir over air pollution caused by a Hong Kong fire recently. The first was a landfill fire Nov. 8 in northern Hong Kong that sent pungent odors to Shenzhen’s Futian, Nanshan and Luohu districts.

    The incident spurred calls by Shenzhen residents for Hong Kong to tackle pollution in cooperation with Shenzhen.

    One hundred members of Shenzhen’s legislature have signed a joint letter calling for the governments of Shenzhen and Hong Kong to implement active measures to control the spread and impact of trash-related pollution from Hong Kong.

    The lawmakers suggested in the letter that the two cities establish a cooperative mechanism to handle and exchange information about serious environmental incidents.

    The lawmakers pledged to pay close attention to the development of Hong Kong’s plans to expand its three landfills, including the one in Tuen Mun, which lies across the water from Nanshan District.

    More than 1 million Shenzhen residents have signed a petition protesting the plan, following an awareness campaign by Shenzhen lawmakers. The signatures will be given to Hong Kong lawmakers.

    (Han Ximin)