The air quality in the city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province for April came in at 35th place among 74 cities watched by the Environmental Protection Ministry, up a few slots from the first quarter, Modern Evening Times has reported.

In April Harbin saw three days out of 29 with fine quality, higher than the rankings of two other capital cities in the region of Northeast China, where Changchun, Jilin province took the 42nd place and Shenyang, Liaoning province was in the 63rd slot.

Experts said that Harbin saw improved air quality last month when the weather got warm so coal consumption for heating fell, and some windy, rainy days in late April helped clear away the PM2.5.

The ranking is based on pollution from six sources -- sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, PM 10, PM2.5, carbon monoxide, and ozone – with the top three good air cities still Haikou, Hainan province, Lhasa, Tibet, and Zhuhai, Guangdong province.

The 74 cities on the list are the first group of cities to apply new air quality standards, the Air Quality Index (AQI).