China Chronicles August 23, 2012
- Rise in road cave-ins spark urban safety fears
A SPATE of road collapses in China, some fatal, has aroused safety fears as well as concern over shoddy infrastructure construction and poor supervision.
Road cave-ins have been frequently reported since July, when heavy rain hit a large number of Chinese cities, testing the urban infrastructure.
In Harbin City in the northeast, seven reported road cave-ins in nine days in the middle of this month killed two people and injured two others. Two vehicles fell into deep pits.
In north China's Shijiazhuang City, 80 road cave-ins have been reported since the major flood season began two months ago.
A Beijing pedestrian was injured after falling into a pit caused by a road cave-in.
There have also been reports of cave-ins in the northeastern and central cities of Dalian, Changsha and Zhengzhou.
Internet users have been mocking the frequent cave-ins, which they say "may trap anyone."
"Please cherish people around you. When they are walking in the city, they may suddenly be gone." was one popular post.
Bloggers have called for the quality of the infrastructure to be taken more seriously.
China's fast development over the past three decades has seen its cities growing and roads extended in an accelerating urbanization drive.
As of 2011, the urban population stood at nearly 700 million in a country where expanses of highways and number of skyscrapers are commonly regarded as two of the most important measures of success.
"The weird situation of 'pedestrians worrying about their safety' is a great irony of a city's high-speed building boom," said Li Xun, deputy head of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design. "It is also an alarm call for the city's managers."
China's urban residents and its media have been questioning the management and supervision of local governments, who themselves have attributed the cave-ins to intense rainfall, extensive pipeline and subway construction and excessive extraction of underground water.
! Experts are urging strengthening of accountability mechanisms in local governments to avoid the recurrence of such tragedies.
"Of course, we should have roads and underground facilities checked and maintained on a regular basis," said Professor Li Simin of the Urban Construction School of Hebei University of Engineering. "But we should also be clear about who should be held accountable for each of these tragedies."
- Probe after police car injures pedestrians
TWO officers are under investigation after their police car hit seven pedestrians and cyclists in Nanning, capital of southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Hospital sources said two of the victims were severely injured, but their injuries are not life threatening.
Investigators with the Nanning Public Security Bureau said the officers were on their way back to the Jiangnan branch of the bureau at 5pm on Tuesday, when their vehicle hit the civilians on a road near Tingzi Vegetable Market.
Huang Fei, one of the victims, sustained injuries to her face and is being treated at Nanning No. 2 People's Hospital.
"The accident site is a bustling downtown area where I live," Huang said, "so I never thought I could be hit there, as drivers often slow down in such populated areas."
Huang said the police had visited the victims and paid their medical bills.
The accident hit the headlines after a posting appeared on Weibo, saying the police car hit civilians and dragged an electric bike for more than 100 meters before it stopped. The message had been forwarded and commented on nearly 10,000 times as of yesterday.
Many people questioned whether the police were drunk and whether they had attempted to flee the scene.
Investigators said blood tests indicated that the driver of the car had not consumed alcohol.
- Hong Kong reunion for the Diaoyu activists
CHINESE activists who landed on the Diaoyu Islands last week were given a hero's welcome in Hong Kong yesterday but a video of their scuffles with Japanese police will likely aggravate tensions.
The activists' battered boat was greeted by throngs of supporters as it arrived on Hong Kong's waterfront, where it was also welcomed by the other half of the group who had earlier returned by plane.
The seven activists were part of a 14-person group that managed to reach the islands last week. The group included two reporters from Phoenix TV, which broadcast video for the first time of the activists' confrontation with Japanese officers.
In the video, six of the activists are seen clambering over the rocky shoreline. The group wade ashore, advancing toward several dozen Japanese police officers wearing riot gear. One of them waves China's national flag as the officers watch. But as they try to go further, the police block their way. Two of them make a run for it but are tackled by the officers.
Phoenix also broadcast footage of a Japanese coastguard vessel ramming the activists' boat to try to stop it reaching the island.
Japan says it will prosecute any Chinese who land on the islands, while the Hong Kong activists have vowed to make another attempt, possibly as soon as in October.
- Two held for altering milk production dates
TWO men were detained by police yesterday after they altered production dates on thousands of cartons of Mengniu milk nearing their expiry date and sold them in some cities in east China Zhejiang Province, according to a China Central Television report.
Wang Sunfu, a Mengniu sales agent and an accomplice surnamed Zhao in the province's Yiwu City, bought 3,000 boxes of milk from a staff member of the dairy producer in early May, paying half price because their expiry date was approaching, the Zhejiang Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau said. Zhao surrendered himself after police detained Wang.
Wang then hired people to change the production date of the milk to May 19 and June 1 from December last year and sold each box at 45 yuan (US$7.2), the normal price in cities including Yiwu and Jinhua.
His fraud was uncovered when industrial and commercial authorities visited a warehouse in Pujiang County in Jinhua and found 160 boxes of milk bearing the false production date.
Inner Mongolia based-Mengniu, one of China's largest dairy producers, has been under fire before for a raft of product contamination scandals.
China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in December that a random sampling found excessive levels of flavacin M1 - a substance linked to liver cancer - in batches of milk products from Mengniu.
In November 2011, quality watchdogs in southern Guangdong found unacceptably high levels of bacteria in Mengniu ice cream.
Six months earlier, 251 pupils fell ill after drinking Mengniu milk at school in northwestern Shaanxi Province.
In 2009, China's quality supervisor ordered Mengniu to prove the safety of OMP, an additive, before using it in its milk products. Experts said consuming high levels of OMP, a milk protein, could lead to higher cancer risks.
In May, cows' urine was added to Mengniu milk instead of water to pass authorities' inspections.
"I had stopped purchasing Mengni! u produc ts for some months after learning about its products may lead to cancer," said a customer Wu Wei living in Shanghai. She said she bought different brands of milk from time to time to avoid safety risks.
"Chinese should boycott Mengniu's products together to push the company to improve," a microblogger said on Weibo.
- 'Wizard' convinces sons to burn mother to death
THREE brothers in a remote village in south China's Hainan Province helped burn their mother to death after a man claiming to be a wizard told them the 61-year-old was a demon who had killed seven people.
Gao Yongchuan, a self-proclaimed "legendary doctor subordinate to the Jade Emperor, Taoist ruler of heaven," was asked by Chen Zuoshan's youngest son, Hu Wensheng, to treat his mother's painful joints on June 8.
Gao, 27, said a ghost living in Chen's body had triggered her disease and force-fed her a quantity of distilled liquor, to which was added the blood of pigs, chicken and dogs, in order to "have her spit out the ghost."
But when the woman fell into a coma because of the alcohol Gao told his two followers and Chen's three sons to use sticks to strike her on her head and body for three hours and then burn her body in a cemetery, yesterday's Nanguo Metropolis Daily reported.
"We all deeply believed in his words," Hu said. "My mother didn't bleed from her head wounds and didn't vomit after having so much alcohol. Gao said only a ghost could perform like this."
Gao said Chen would "climb out if she was just buried" and had to be burned, the paper said.
During the beating, Chen's daughter and several other relatives cheered Gao on, calling for him to "kill the demon."
Gao, his followers - his 39-year-old brother, Gao Yongming, and Zhou Fudong, 26, Chen's son-in-law - and the brothers, Hu Wenyue, 36, Hu Wenjin, 29, and Hu Wensheng, 27, are charged with murder.
- Tests find 196 children suffering lead poisoning
Nearly 200 children in a remote town in southern Guangdong Province have been found to have excess levels of lead in their blood.
Their homes in Xingzi Town are just a kilometer away from a coal-fired power plant.
The 196 children living in one community tested positive for lead poisoning with 95 having levels 4.5 times above the safe level, yesterday's China Business News reported.
Since the town has 20 villages and 211 communities, the actual number of lead-poisoned children could be much higher, the paper said.
Parents were unaware of the hazards posed by the plant until their children began to exhibit poor memory, eyesight problems, lack of appetite, vomiting and hair loss.
Villagers said the nearby Xingzi River was "black and smelly" and smoke from the plant's two chimneys "cover the whole township."
They said that plant workers lived in dormitories in Lianzhou City rather than at the plant and commuted by bus while some families had moved to other towns because of the pollution.
In response to public anger, Guangdong Yuedian Group suspended the plant's operation and the local government offered medical subsidies from 250 yuan (US$39.35) to 1,050 yuan.
But the families say the money isn't enough to cover medical bills, the paper reported.
Guangdong governor Zhu Xiaoda has asked authorities to investigate and make every effort to ensure the children receive proper treatment.
- 游 swim
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