Beijing police have been monitoring holiday crowds from helicopters, a moved meant to curb stampedes in the city's busiest areas during the week-long Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.

Police helicopters are used to ensure real-time surveillance of holiday crowds at major destinations, including a traditional temple fair at the Temple of Earth in downtown Beijing and one of the city's best-known ski resorts near the Badaling Great Wall, a spokesman with Beijing Public Security Bureau's police aviation fleet said Friday.

The Temple of Earth, which hosts Beijing's most frequently visited temple fair during the Lunar New Year holiday, received 175,000 visitors on Thursday alone, the spokesman said.

He said his bureau mobilized nearly 1,000 police officers and security guards to the scene to keep order. Meanwhile, airborne police watched the crowd closely and sent timely instructions for the guards to divert the crowd and restrict the visitor flow in order to prevent accidents.

The spokesman said Beijing police also watched out for fire disasters and other firework-related accidents aboard helicopters on Sunday, the Chinese New Year's Eve, when celebrations reached a climax.

The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau set up a police aviation fleet in July to enhance its emergency response capability.

The fleet had four helicopters, but one of them crashed into a reservoir, killing four people on board, in August.