BEIJING, November 7 -- Organizers of next year's Olympic Games have worked out contingency plans to deal with possible bad weather during the world's prime sporting event, an official said.
"We have already had a scheme to cope with various weather conditions during the Games period," Yang Shu'an, executive vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG), told a press conference Wednesday.
At least six additional observation points have been set up around the Olympic Green, where a cluster of Olympic venues are located, and other Olympic-related sites for weather surveillance, said Yang.
"Weather forecast will be updated every three hours during the games period so that we can make timely decisions on whether the contingency plan should be put into force," he said.
China's national meteorological bureau has promised extreme accuracy of weather forecast during the August 8-24 Games, saying weather forecasts would tell people when and where rain is to happen while vague words like the rainfall probability are absolutely banned.
BOCOG's precaution mechanism proved effective in last summer's test events, said Yang.
"For example, we had a specific plan to deal with typhoon before the Olympic equestrian events in Hong Kong in August," he said.
"And when the typhoon really hit Hong Kong just on the event's opening day, we immediately informed the audiences and athletes about the rescheduling plan. Actually, we were glad to have the typhoon because it provides us a good opportunity to test our readiness to deal with contingencies."
