China Chronicles February 18, 2013
- 1 body found after dam broke in Shanxi
A 70-year-old man was found dead in his house after a dam broke on Saturday night, flooding the whole village in Hongdong County, Shanxi Province. He was only dead victim in the flood, local authorities said.
Qiao Tiansuo's body was found in the debris of his collapsed house in Nanyangxie Village yesterday morning. All other villagers had evacuated to safe places before the flood arrived, Beijing Times reported today.
His son said the family stayed in a relative's house on Saturday night, but the old man went home without telling anyone.
The village was believed to be empty as everyone had evacuated to safety. No one noticed Qiao was still there, his family said.
Authorities are also verifying the allegation by a villager that another old man also died in the flood which happened when a tunnel in the nearby Quting Reservoir caved in on Friday, causing a section of the dam to collapse.
The reservoir was built in 1959 and has been renovated several times. Local media reported as early as 2006 that the provincial finance bureau deducted funds for the reservoir's maintenance. Many netizens believed official corruption was the cause of the disaster.
- Domestic flight returns after engine cover falls off
A China Southern Airlines flight has safety returned and landed without an engine hood after it took off from Harbin, capital of northeastern Heilongjiang Province this morning, media reported.
One of the passengers, who was identified as "cigarette ash prince" on Weibo.com, said flight CZ3624 from Harbin to southern city of Guangzhou lost its engine hood on air and was forced to make a return voyage after hovering for two hours.
"After hearing a loud noise, the crew held an emergency meeting. The captain told us other plane parts working well and decided a crash landing. Finally we landed smoothly and passengers applauded," he said.
News portal Sina.com confirmed that the aircraft, which was said to be an Airbus A320, departed from Harbin Taiping Airport at 8:29am and safety returned at 9:52am.
China Southern Airlines haven't made any responses as of noon. - Fight over debt leaves 2 dead, 1 injured in Changsha
At least two died and one was injured in an armed fight Sunday evening in a hotel in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, Xinhua News Agency reported today.
The fight erupted around 8pm, involving two groups of people who used knives and guns to attack each other. People heard gunshots in the melee. All the suspects fled before police arrived.
Changsha police said the fight might be caused by a debt dispute and they are pursuing all those took part in the fight. - Fight over debt leaves 2 dead, 1 injured in Changsha
AT least two died and one was injured in an armed fight this morning in a hotel in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The fight erupted around 8am, involving two groups of people who used knives and guns to attack each other. People heard gunshots in the melee. All the suspects fled before police arrived.
Changsha police said the fight might be caused by a debt dispute and they are pursuing all those took part in the fight.
- Two killed in central China hotel attack
TWO people died and another was wounded in a hotel assault in central China's Hunan Province, police said today.
The attack occurred at around 8 am in a tea bar of the Fulihua Hotel in Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, according to police.
In the fight, some people slashed others with knives and gunshots were heard, witnesses said.
Police are hunting down attackers, who fled the scene after the attack.
A debts-related dispute was believed to be the cause of the attack, according to initial investigations by police.
- Two killed in central China hotel attack
TWO people died and another was wounded in a hotel assault in central China's Hunan Province, police said today.
The attack occurred at around 8 am in a tea bar of the Fulihua Hotel in Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, according to police.
In the fight, some people slashed others with knives and gunshots were heard, witnesses said.
Police are hunting down attackers, who fled the scene after the attack.
A debts-related dispute was believed to be the cause of the attack, according to initial investigations by police.
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- Temples shut in swindles
AUTHORITIES have shut two temples on a sacred Buddhist mountain in northern China and arrested six people who were hired by the temples to deceive tourists into donating money.
The Wutai Mountain Administration Bureau closed two of the mountain's dozens of temples and revoked their business licenses on Friday, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.
The arrests were made for illegal money collection and the report said that the temples had hired six fake monks to con tourists into buying expensive incense and paying unreasonable amounts of money for religious ceremonies.
"We will continue to regulate temples and shops on Wutai Mountain to display a good image to tourists," the director of the bureau told Xinhua.
Last year, the government's religious affairs office called on local authorities to ban profiteering related to religious activity and told them not to allow religious venues to be run as business ventures.
- Trains run again as dam collapse damage fixed
TRAIN services resumed near a reservoir in Shanxi Province yesterday after more than 5,000 workers repaired a 1.4-kilometer-long railway section damaged when a dam wall collapsed last Friday, causing flooding, China News Service reported.
By yesterday, more than 6,400 passengers, stranded at a railway station in Taiyuan City after train services were suspended in the incident, had left the station, many by bus or train.
Residents living near the Quting reservoir in Shanxi were evacuated after part of the dam's wall collapsed on Friday morning. The collapse occurred when the top of a water duct at the reservoir caved in, leading to the collapse of part of the dam's walls, the report said.
No casualties were reported after the accident, but several roads were closed due to flooding.
Damage to the 1.4-kilometer-long railway section caused by flooding forced 13 train lines to travel on another routes and shut down eight train services, officials at the Taiyuan Railway Bureau said.
Local officials said the water duct was built in 1959 and that its age was thought to be one cause of the incident.
- Smog that shrouded Beijing a brew of deadly chemicals
THE heavy smog that affected north China in January contained a heavy concentration of deadly organic compounds, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Wang Yuesi, an academy researcher, said the smog that shrouded Beijing and other cities in the region contained chemicals that were present in London's Great Smog of 1952, in which about 12,000 people died, and the photochemical smog in Los Angeles from 1940 to 1950 which killed about 800 people.
The academy's study found that the source of the air pollution was vehicle and industrial emissions.
Chen Liangfu, another academy researcher, said the problem was made worse as small airborne particles increased in size by two to three times when combined with water in the air.
In Beijing, vehicle emissions were the biggest problem, making up about a quarter of the air pollution, the study found.
This was followed by the burning of coal and dust and sand blown in from outside the city which each made up about a fifth of the pollution.
The academy's experts said coal burning should be controlled and attention paid to emissions by diesel vehicles and the quality of the fuel they used.
Yesterday, smog again disrupted traffic and flights in Beijing, with moderate or serious air pollution reported and visibility down to 500 meters during the early morning, the Beijing Environmental Protection Monitoring Center said. At one point, visibility at the Beijing Capital International Airport fell to 5 to 10 meters, causing flights to be delayed, Xinhua news agency reported.
Meanwhile, fireworks caused PM2.5 readings to skyrocket in many cities during the Spring Festival holiday, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said yesterday.
Figures released by the ministry showed that 42.7 percent of 74 cities reported higher-than-normal readings of the dangerous particles measuring 2.5 microns or less in diameter, Xinhua said.
The highest average reading in a single day was 426 micrograms per cubic m! eter, or 5.7 times the country's standard.
North China's Tianjin hit 577 on lunar New Year's Eve, the highest of all cities. Some cities also saw excessive readings for PM10 and sulfur dioxide, Xinhua said.
- Tip on toxic discharges worth 100,000 yuan
A REWARD of up to 100,000 yuan (US$16,000) is being offered to anyone who blows the whistle on companies illegally discharging waste deep underground in Shandong Province's Weifang City.
The offer by the local government follows online claims that many chemical companies in the east China city have been using high-pressure injection wells to discharge waste sewage over 1,000 meters deep underground for years, seriously polluting underground water and posing a cancer threat.
A post on Weibo said the companies were all "rich and powerful" ones preparing for initial public offerings, and they used injection wells - vertical pipes sunk into the ground - so supervisors would not notice the illegal discharges.
The Weifang government told Xinhua news agency that they had investigated 715 companies but so far hadn't found any polluting the underground water.
It said it wanted whistleblowers to come forward.
The post was just one among many exposing pollution scandals in an online campaign to reveal widespread water pollution in China during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.
The campaign was started by Deng Fei, a journalist of the Phoenix Weekly magazine, who asked people to photograph or film pollution when they returned to their hometowns during the holiday.
The online posts claimed that it was common practice for chemical companies to directly discharge waste water deep underground in Shandong Province where many villagers in towns near the factories mainly relied on underground water for drinking.
"I'm from Tai'an City of Shandong. For several years, sunlight cannot shine through thick haze as many chemical factories were set up, discharging waste water directly into underground," said one post.
"I drink bottled water purchased from outside the town, but most villagers still drink the underground water. More and more people caught cancer at young age and many local children caught pneumonia," the post said.
Another post by a villa! ger in Shandong's Zibo City said the water from wells appeared to be as black as ink and had a sour taste. It said the problem had been identified as long ago as December 2010 but claimed the local government hadn't tried to correct the problem.
According to China Geological Survey, 90 percent of underground water in China has been polluted to some extent, while 60 percent of that is seriously polluted, Xinhua reported.
- Bird flu quarantine ends
A total of 110 people who had close contact with two patients with avian influenza H5N1 in southwest China's Guizhou Province this month have been released from quarantine, local health authorities announced yesterday.
Two residents of the provincial capital of Guiyang were reported to have contracted the H5N1 virus on February 8. Health officials put 110 people who had close contact with them under quarantine. They were released as no abnormal symptoms were found.
One patient, a 21-year-old woman, died of multiple organ failure last Wednesday. The other patient, a 31-year-old man, is still receiving medical treatment.
No new avian influenza H5N1 cases have been reported.
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- Six arrested over Buddhist temples' illegal funding
TWO temples on Mount Wutai, one of four sacred Buddhist mountains in China, have been shut down and six people arrested over illegal funding of the sites, the local administration bureau announced today.
Added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2009, Mount Wutai is home to about 50 Buddhist temples that were built between the 1st century AD and the early 20th century.
Two illegal temples named "Foguozhongxin" and "Temple for the God of Wealth" were on Thursday reported to have hired fake monks to deceive tourists into donating money, buying expensive incense and paying unreasonable amounts for ceremonies.
The Mount Wutai Administration Bureau on Friday closed the two temples and revoked their business licenses. Further investigation is under way.
"We will continue to regulate temples and shops on Mount Wutai to display a good image to tourists," said the director of the bureau. - Police nab 17,900 suspects during holiday
POLICE caught more than 17,900 people suspected of committing crimes during the Spring Festival holiday.
From Feb. 8 to 15, police broke up more than 2,790 criminal gangs and cracked 62,080 cases involving 130 million yuan (US$20.8 million), the Ministry of Public Security revealed today.
The ministry said it will continue to crack down on burglaries and robberies, as well as work to safeguard people's lives and property. - Lovely girl
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