China Chronicles February 1, 2013
- Sleet triggers rises in road accidents, fatalities in Beijing
A two-day sleet storm, along with days of haze, has caused treacherous road conditions in the capital, triggering more than 2,000 traffic accidents yesterday and leading to at least four deaths, authority estimated.
The Jingping Expressway, linking downtown Beijing to its suburban Pinggu District, witnessed a 20-pileup yesterday morning, mainly due to its sleepy and heavily frozen road surfaces.
Two died, two got severely injured and other 15 slightly wounded in the accidents, Beijing Times reported today.
"The road is too sleepy! I couldn't stop even I saw the accidents in front of me," a driver said.
Another death occurred in downtown Beijing when a van suddenly crashed into a tree on the roadside, and Miyun County in Beijing as of yesterday afternoon reported one death.
Weather forecast showed today's Beijing has a sunny day, but in the next two days, sleet storms, icy rains and snows will hit the city again. - Blue Sky Beijing
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At last.... the sun returns to Beijing and the AQI index returns to a rather more acceptable level (albeit still classed as "Moderate" rather than "Good" - a faint tinge of yellow is still visible near the horizon).
In other news, a Mandarin Oriental logo has returned to the gate of the construction site for the smaller of the two new buildings... - Rain helps clear the air a little in Beijing
THE heavy smog that has choked Beijing for the past five days weakened slightly yesterday due to rain, although the capital's air remained heavily polluted.
A little rain fell overnight on Wednesday, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau said. The air quality index fell but was still above 200, or seriously polluted.
Earlier this week, Beijing implement stricter measures to reduce pollutants, including suspending the use of 30 percent of local government vehicles and halting production at 103 heavily polluting companies.
But not everyone abided by the measures. More than 800 government vehicles supposed to be suspended were still in use, municipal traffic authorities said.
And several construction sites ordered to suspend their work failed to do so on Wednesday.
In many other parts of north and east China, smog has disrupted flights and traffic.
Thirty flights were canceled and 78 flights were delayed yesterday morning at an airport in Tianjin, just east of Beijing.
Visibility was reduced to less than 50 meters in many parts of east China's Shandong Province.
However, the National Meteorological Center rescinded its yellow smog alert early yesterday with smog in central and east China expected to be dispersed by a cold front due today.
- Desire for cars is choking the nation
LONG lines of slow-moving cars emerge like apparitions and then disappear again into the gloom of the thick smog that has shrouded Beijing this week and reduced its skyline to blurry gray shapes.
With more than 13 million cars sold in China last year, motor vehicles have emerged as the chief culprit for the throat-choking air pollution in big cities. Especially in the capital, which has suffered even more than usual these past few days.
Over the past 20 years, cars have become the new symbol of prosperity for Chinese families. With the economy continuing to grow, the love affair with cars can only blossom, but it is already posing a challenge with pollution in urban China having a widespread impact on health, productivity and quality of life.
Car ownership and pollution have become part of a vicious cycle.
"To be honest, the more the air is polluted, the more I prefer to drive, as I don't like taking a crowded bus or walking outside in such bad air," said subway train driver Gao Fei.
Twenty years ago, bicycles, not cars, owned the streets. Today, "buying a car is like buying a bicycle," said Gao as he drove his black Buick Regal sedan in west Beijing.
"It hasn't been long since Chinese people owned their own cars. So for them a car is still something quite fresh and so they prefer to drive after so many years of riding bicycles," he said. "They would still prefer to enjoy the traffic jam rather than suffer on the crowded bus."
In the 1990s, the few vehicles on the roads belonged to the government or state companies. Private car ownership took off exponentially only in the past decade.
The government has promoted car buying as a way of keeping the economy growing with banks offering attractive car loans. These policies, and the traditional Chinese habit of saving, have put cars like Gao's Buick Regal (price tag 180,000 yuan, or US$29,000) within the reach of many Chinese.
The result has been increased vehicle emissions.
While burning of c! oal for power plants is a major source of air pollution across China, vehicle emissions are the single biggest source of PM2.5 ? a secondary pollutant that forms in the air and is tiny enough to enter deep into the lungs ? in Beijing, according to the capital's former vice mayor, Hong Feng.
He says vehicles account for 22 percent of PM2.5 in the capital, followed by 17 percent from coal burning and 16 percent from construction site dust. In recent days, air quality went off the index in Beijing as the capital turned into a white landscape with buildings eaten up by murk.
Zhang Quan, a former soldier, said the smog was the worst and longest-lasting he had seen.
"When I was young, our geography teacher taught us how to recognize the galaxy and I could find it at night, but I guess kids nowadays can't do that anymore," said Zhang, 52.
When Beijing resident Wang Hui leaves her home she usually gets in her Toyota Camry, bought seven months ago mainly for her husband to meet clients for the business the couple run designing science labs. Now she couldn't imagine life without it.
Wang said it would be tough to take care of her five-year-old son "by myself while holding several shopping bags at the same time." She added: "My husband really needs a car for the business, it is just more convenient. So we wouldn't give up the car even if pollution is getting worse, one car can't make a difference, and we really need it for our life."
China is the biggest car market in the world by number of vehicles sold. But it still lags far behind developed markets in terms of the ratio of cars to people. In 2010 in China, only 31 per 1,000 people owned a car, compared with 424 per 1,000 in the United States, said IHS analyst Namrita Chow.
More than 13 million passenger cars were sold in China in 2012, an annual increase of 7.6 percent, according to data from IHS Automotive, and it expects a growth rate of 11 percent this year.
Beijing's wide avenues and underpasses that stretch ! across ei! ght lanes of traffic don't allow pedestrians to get anywhere in a hurry. The city's subway system is overwhelmed with passengers, there are long walks between lines and its stations don't always link up with bus stops.
"Public transport should really have been prioritized but we need to understand that if you want to build up a new public transport system then you have to plan and design the city the right way," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs.
Gao, the subway driver, can't think of anyone he knows who doesn't have a car. He and his wife, who sells subway tickets, worry about the health of their one-year-old in the worsening pollution. "My dream is simple," he says. "To live in a warm apartment, drive a car I like and have a healthy child."
- Poor parents' devotion keeps son alive
HER hands coarsened from years of pumping a homemade ventilator to keep her son alive, Wang Lanqin sat by his hospital bed this week watching as she learned how to use a modern ventilator donated by a Beijing company.
For years, Wang and her husband Fu Minzu took turns pumping their primitive device to help Fu Xuepeng, now 30, breathe, as they could not afford his hospital bills after he was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident five years ago. Their hands became deformed from two years of pumping the device thousands of times a day, media reports said, but their load was lightened after they built the crude mechanical ventilator with help from relatives.
The machine, which incorporates a plastic milk bottle, stood on tables held in place with slabs of rock and was connected by tube to their son.
Even after building the machine, to save on electricity the couple kept up their hand-pumping routine by day.
Media images prompted a flurry of donations to the couple who are from Taizhou City in Zhejiang Province.
These included cash and the ventilator. Fu is being cared for at a hospital in the city until his parents are sure they can operate the machine at home.
China has vastly expanded health insurance schemes in rural areas over the past decade, but payouts are still low, leaving severely or chronically ill patients dependent on family members to pay medical bills.
"We never think of giving up, not for one second," Fu said. "No parents would give up on their child as long as there is a slight chance of living."
- Ex-official revealed to have 41 properties
A WOMAN dubbed the "house sister" has 41 properties in Beijing, almost double the number that earned her the nickname, police said yesterday.
Properties belonging to Gong Ai'ai, former deputy head of a bank in Shenmu County in Shaanxi Province, totaled 9,666.6 square meters, they said. She has gone missing.
Police have seized her Audi car and 10 of her properties because she bought them with a fake Beijing hukou, or residence permit, which was revoked last Thursday.
The properties include residential apartments, offices and garages.
Police have, as yet, been unable to track the woman down.
An initial investigation found Gong had at least two identities - Gong Ai'ai and Gong Xianxia - and four residence permits, one in Shenmu, one in Beijing and two in neighboring Shanxi Province between 2004 and 2008.
One of her Shanxi hukou was revoked in January last year and the other on January 19 this year, police found.
Seven people, including four police officers, have been detained for their involvement in the scandal, and will be subject to criminal investigations, according to officials at the Ministry of Public Security.
- asylum
- 中國澳門
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