China Chronicles February 25, 2013
- EXPOSED
- China's mainland home to 247 'cancer villages'
China has more than 247 "cancer villages" throughout the mainland, according to a map that is being widely circulated on the Internet.
The map caught the public's attention after the Ministry of Environmental Protection admitted earlier this month the existence of such villages and said pollution was to blame for high cancer rates among their residents.
The map was said to have been drawn up by a Chinese university student after research into data and media reports.
Although such villages are found in around 27 regions, many of them are located in central Henan and eastern Jiangsu provinces.
The number of such villages is a sharp increase compared to another widely circulated map published by social activist Deng Fei several years ago.
Deng identified just over 100 "cancer villages."
In Yangqiao Village of Yancheng City in Jiangsu, more than 20 villagers have been reported as dying of cancer, mainly from lung and esophageal cancers, from 2001 to 2004.
The pollution in the air was so bad, it was reported, that villagers had to cover their mouths and noses with wet towels when sleeping.
In Dongjin Village in the same city, nearly 100 villagers were said to have died of cancer from 2001 to 2006 as the result of pollution caused by a chemical company. The firm offered 70 yuan (US$11) to each villager as "subsidy" after it was sued by victims, China Business Journal reported.
In a village in Henan, a total of 79 villagers died of cancer in four years after a growing number of paper manufacturing factories discharged industrial waste into river, turning it as black as ink.
The environmental ministry has published a plan to prevent and control risks brought by chemicals to the environment.
The ministry said China was still producing and using toxic chemicals which were banned in some developed countries because of their threat to human health and the environment.
"Various chemicals have been detected in some rivers, lakes ! and inshore waters, as well as in animals and human bodies in recent years," the ministry said.
"Toxic chemicals have caused several environment emergencies linking to water and air pollution. Drinking water crises hit many regions while 'cancer villages' and other severe cases of health and social problems emerged in some other regions," the ministry said.
According to the plan, sources polluting underground water will be under tight supervision by environmental watchdogs by 2020.
Shallow underground water in China has been severely polluted and the situation is deteriorating rapidly, with water quality data in 2011 showing that 55 percent of underground supplies in 200 cities was of bad or extremely bad quality, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources.
A review of underground water carried out by the ministry from 2000 to 2002 showed that nearly 60 percent of shallow underground water was undrinkable, the Beijing News reported yesterday.
Some reports in the Chinese media said water pollution was so severe in some regions that it caused cancer in villagers and even led to cows and sheep which drank it to become sterile.
In the latest pollution scandal, chemical companies in east China's Weifang City were accused of using high-pressure injection wells to discharge waste sewage more than 1,000 meters underground for years, seriously polluting underground water and posing a cancer threat.
The government of the city is offering 100,000 yuan (US$16,000) to anyone who blows the whistle on companies illegally discharging waste underground. So far, no companies have been caught for polluting the environment.
- Marathon runner to quit ... at age of 101
THE world's oldest marathon runner ran his last race yesterday at the age of 101.
Fauja Singh finished the Hong Kong marathon's 10-kilometer race in a time of 1 hour, 32 minutes and 28 seconds.
Singh, a Sikh, wore a saffron turban and sported a flowing white beard. As he followed the route along the northern lip of Hong Kong island, he was accompanied by a group from the city's local Sikh community, joining about 72,000 other runners taking part in the marathon.
The Indian-born runner, nicknamed the Turbaned Torpedo, said earlier that he would hang up his sneakers after the race in the southern Chinese city, just before his 102nd birthday.
"I will remember this day. I will miss it," Singh said minutes after crossing the finish line.
Singh, a great-grandfather, became the oldest man to run a full marathon at Toronto in 2011, at the age of 100. But his record was not recognized by Guinness World Records because he doesn't have a birth certificate to prove his age. Singh has a British passport that shows his date of birth as April 1, 1911, while a letter from Indian government officials states that birth records were not kept in 1911.
"I am feeling a bit of happiness and a bit of sadness mixed together. I am happy that I am retiring at the top of the game but I am sad that the time has come for me to not be part of it," Singh said in a pre-race interview. "And there will always be times in the future where I will be thinking, 'Well, I used to do that."
Singh took up running at the age of 89 as a way to get over depression after his wife and son died in quick succession.
The death in 1994 of his son took a particularly hard toll on Singh because of its grisly nature. Singh and his son Kuldip, both farmers, were checking their fields in the middle of a storm when a piece of corrugated metal blown by the wind decapitated Kuldip in front of his father's eyes.
Singh, whose five other children had emigrated, was left all alone.
"He didn't thin! k his life was worth living without his son" following the traumatic incident, coach Harmander Singh said.
He went to live with his youngest son in London. That's where the sports enthusiast Singh attended tournaments organized by the Sikh community and took part in sprints. Some Sikh marathon runners encouraged him to take up long-distance running.
One day Singh saw a marathon on television for the first time and decided that's what he wanted to do too.
In 2000, he ran the London marathon, his first, and went on to do eight more. His best time was 5 hours and 40 minutes in Toronto in 2003.
"From a tragedy has come a lot of success and happiness," Singh said before the race yesterday as he explained how running had changed his life, allowing an illiterate farmer to travel the world.
Following his retirement from racing, he said he hoped "people will remember me and not forget me."
He also wanted people to continue to invite him to events "rather than forget me altogether just because I don't run anymore."
- Lanterns mark end of the holiday
China celebrated the Lantern Festival with fireworks and food yesterday, as millions of migrant workers flowed back to cities and smog blanketed a large part of the country.
The festival formally marks the end of celebrations for the Chinese Lunar New Year, 15 days after it began.
The Ministry of Railways estimated that around 6.4 million people would have made train journeys yesterday.
Many of China's migrant workers living in rural areas delay their return to work beyond the official public holiday, which only lasts a week.
Yesterday, air pollution in Beijing reached hazardous levels due to increased traffic and the fireworks, China Central Television reported. Officials in the capital were urging people to limit the number of fireworks they set off.
As of 7pm, air quality was heavily to severely polluted, the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center said.
Beijing has banned fireworks in its urban area, only allowing residents to let off them from the eve of the Spring Festival to the Lantern Festival.
At 4pm, the city's weather forecasters issued a smog alert, predicting visibility of less than 3,000 meters over the next 12 hours. There were also smog alerts issued for central and eastern parts of the country.
In Shanghai, worshippers thronged Buddhist temples, burning incense and tossing coins into giant urns to make wishes for the coming year.
Shoppers snapped up dumplings made from glutinous rice with sweet or savory fillings, called tang yuan in Shanghai, traditionally eaten on the holiday.
"The pork ones sold out early. We can't make enough," said a clerk at a branch of dumpling chain Wangjiasha, offering crab meat or sweet sesame paste alternatives.
Outside Beijing in Yuxian, a rural part of Hebei Province, residents marked the festival by holding a parade with a dragon dance and releasing red paper lanterns like small hot-air balloons into the sky.
Livelier than Beijing
In the thousand-year-old Pingyao Town i! n north China's Shanxi Province, people hung lanterns above front doors and set off fireworks.
"We traveled from Beijing to Pingyao, and experienced different atmospheres of Lantern Festival celebrations. Pingyao is livelier," said Sarah Brown, an Australian tourist.
School pupil Zheng Rui enjoyed the traditional performances.
"My teacher told me to keep writing a diary during the winter vacation. I watched the performances so I can write about them. The journey will be worthwhile with impressive memories," Zheng said.
Besides eating yuanxiao, a sweetened dumpling made of glutinous rice flour and stuffed with meat, nuts, fruit or sugar, Zheng, his parents and relatives enjoyed a variety of performances put on by the town, including dragon lantern dances, lion dances, stilt-walking and Pingyao operas.
In northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Library prepared more than 1,000 Chinese puzzles and 300 puzzles for residents.
There were many charity performances in Xinjiang and a bazaar to help disabled people and people in need.
In central China's Henan Province, to reduce air pollution and avoid smog, cities and districts of Zhengzhou, Jiyuan, Zhoukou, Zhumadian and Sanmenxia canceled fireworks displays.
The government of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, held cultural performances, intangible cultural heritage and large-scale lamp exhibitions in the city's parks.
"It's worthwhile giving up fireworks for fresh air, and I believe citizens understand," said Wang Dezhi, a Zhengzhou resident.
In northeastern Jilin Province, some firework sellers said they faced a quiet festival since people were refusing to buy their products.
"I only sold 100 yuan worth of fireworks today. I bought 50,000 yuan worth of fireworks this year, but there are still more than 5,000 yuan worth to sell," said Wang Li.
- Meteor fragments on sale likely to be fakes
FRAGMENTS said to be from the meteor that plunged over Russia's Ural region are being sold online in China at prices ranged from 8,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan (US$16,040).
However, scientists warned yesterday that most of them could be fake.
Some sellers on shopping website taobao.com said the small rocks had been collected from the site of the Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant after nearly 1,200 people had been injured and thousands of homes damaged by the meteor on February 15.
"The fragments were picked by some of my Russian friends and the rocks, about 10 grams each, are still in Russia," said one vendor. His price was 8,600 yuan a piece and he claimed that wearing them could cure depression.
"They are quite rare stuff, no matter you believe or not," he said.
Another seller was charging 80,000 yuan for a 3-kilogram rock which he claimed had just been shipped to China from Russia. He required cash for it but refused requests for an interview.
The most expensive fragment, costing 100,000 yuan, was advertised using pictures that apparently came from Xinhua news agency.
Most of the fragments for sale online are fake because the genuine article would have a serial number granted by official international organizations, Tang Haiming, an official with the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory on Sheshan Hill, said.
Tang said many of the fragments were actually residue from steel-making that looked similar to pieces of the meteor.
But he discouraged people buying even genuine fragments. The ingredients of the meteor and whether they are harmful to human health was still unclear, Tang said.
Zhu Jin, curator of the Beijing Planetarium, said: "About 95 percent of claimed meteorite fragments are man-made."
Some Russian websites are also offering pieces for sale. Prices range from 100 to 1,000 rubles (about US$3 to US$33). Police have begun an investigation into the online sales.
Last week, Russian scientists said they had found pieces of the meteorit! e in the Chebarkul Lake near Chelyabinsk.
But some scientists say no large remnants exist, as the meteor was mainly composed of ice which almost completely evaporated during its entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
- Lantern Festival
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The 15th day of Chinese Spring Festival marks the end of lunar new year festivities and is done by lighting these elaborate paper lanterns. It is said that releasing these lanterns symbolizes letting go of the past and embracing the new year.
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