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Rescuer Wu Juping smiles at her own son in a ward of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Bone Fracture Hospital at Fuyang, a county-level city in Hangzhou, East China\’s Zhejiang province, on Sunday, after she has saved a 2-year-old girl. (Source: China Daily/Xinhua)
A young mother in Hangzhou of Zhejiang province saved the life of a 2-year-old girl who fell from the 10th floor of a building on Saturday.

On Saturday afternoon, while her grandmother went to get some quilts she was drying on the roof, the girl crawled on to the windowsill of the bedroom where her grandmother had left her sleeping. A downstairs neighbor seeing the girl tried to reach her using a ladder, but the attempt failed and the girl finally fell.

Wu Juping, 31, who lives in the same neighborhood, ran to the building when she heard someone cry out in alarm and managed to catch the girl before she hit the ground. However, Wu was not able to hold her because of the force of the impact.

"The girl\’s brain, lungs, gastrointestinal tract are all injured because of the height she fell from. She also has difficulties in urination," a doctor with Zhejiang Children\’s Hospital posted on its micro blog on Sunday.

Wu suffered a comminuted fracture in her left arm and will have to undergo surgery. Her recovery is expected to take six months.

"If it were not for Wu, my daughter would have no chance of receiving treatment," the girl\’s father, surnamed Zhang, was quoted by China Central Television as saying on Sunday.

"It is the greatest warmth I have ever experienced in my life – that a stranger saved my daughter\’s life," Zhang said.

Wu works at the customer service department of China\’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, and Alibaba\’s chairman Ma Yun said via his micro blog on Sunday that, "I feel privileged to have been working with Wu for seven years. I hope Wu and the girl can get well soon."

"I did it out of a mother\’s instinct," Wu told Hangzhou-based Youth Times.

"I know how difficult it is to deliver and bring up a child. I wouldn\’t accept it if the child died in front of me," said Wu, whose own baby is only seven months old.

Source: China Daily

The Shanghai Expo\’s China Pavilion expects crowds to teem through its doors when it reopens on July 12 in the sweltering summer heat.

The pavilion will be open to public for three months till October 9, from Tuesday to Sunday.

A sunshade large enough to keep 8,000 people out of direct sunlight has been erected at the waiting area outside the pavilion. Fans have been installed under the sunshade, said pavilion staff.

The staff also had prepared enough umbrellas for 2,000 people at the security check zone.

Shanghai is expected to have from 20 to 24 days with temperatures reaching above 35 degrees Celsius this year, according to the Shanghai Municipal Meteorological Bureau.

The exhibition of the China Pavilion, also known as the "Crown of the East," was first extended from December 1, 2010 to May 31, 2011, after it was closed when the Shanghai Expo ended in October last year.

Like the first exhibition extension, tickets for the pavilion are still priced at 20 yuan (about 3.1 U.S. dollars) for adults and 15 yuan for students, disabled people, military servicemen and senior citizens.

During the first extension of exhibitions, the pavilion received more than 5.7 million visitors. During the six-month Expo, it received more than 10 million visitors from home and abroad.

Source: Xinhua

Heavy rainfall and drainage system breakdown are blamed for a coal mine flooding that trapped 23 workers underground Saturday in southwest China\’s Guizhou Province, local authorities said Sunday.

The accident happened at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Niupeng Mine in Pingtang County of the Bouyei-Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Qiannan.

Shortly after the accident, mine authorities confirmed 21 workers were trapped. But two others were found missing Sunday and were believed to have entered the pit.

The emergency rescue headquarters said the underground water level has been briefly dropped by two meters at around 7 p.m. Sunday but then rose again.

Initial investigation shows that the water level in Hanglong river surrounding the mine increased by 2.5 meters due to recent rainfall, which caused ground water level to rise and flooded the mine, said Yang Chaohui, chief engineer of the provincial Water Resources Department.

The mine\’s drainage system had a breakdown on Saturday, so the miners went down the shaft to check the machines and then the mine was flooded, Yang said.

Before the flooding, the water leak in the mine was already very serious since 16 pumps, each with a drainage capacity of 900 cubic meters per hour, were used then to drain water, said Li Shangkuan, deputy chief of the provincial Work Safety Administration.

The serious water leakage should have alerted the mine managers. People responsible for the accident will be identified after thorough investigation, Li said.

Rescuers worked through the night to pump water from the pit. By 9 a.m. Sunday, 23,000 cubic meters of flood water had been drained, said Wang Jinzhong, an official from State Administration of Work Safety.

It is estimated that about 60,000 cubic meters of water have flooded into the mine in one day, which means that rescuers have to drain at least 2,500 cubic meters of water per hour to drop the water level, the rescue headquarters said.

At present 1,350 cubic meters of water are being pumped out hourly, which has already briefly lowered the water level. The drainage capacity is expected to reach 2,000 cubic meters per hour on Monday when more pumps are installed, the rescue headquarters said.

However, risks exist if more water are being drained at a faster speed.

The lowering ground water level in the mine will cause surrounding water to flow faster into the mine or even gushing out, which will threaten the rescuers underground, the rescue headquarters said.

The majority of the trapped miners are from the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Family members began arriving Sunday morning to wait for news.

The local government has mobilized 500 people to receive and console the grieved family members.

Saturday saw a coal mine disaster in Guangxi, where three were confirmed dead and 19 remained stranded following a cave-in.

Rescuers are still digging into the shaft Sunday, hoping to reach the missing workers.

But high levels of explosive gas and siltage in the shaft hindered rescue efforts and little progress was reported.

Source: Xinhua

China\’s meteorological authorities issued a warning on Sunday about excessively high temperatures that are expected to hit southern China for the next few days.

The mercury is set to hover between 35 and 37 C in parts of Sichuan province and Chongqing municipality in Southwest China as well as in most areas south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and in the eastern portions of South China, the National Meteorological Center said in a statement on its website.

And temperatures could edge up to between 38 and 39 C in some of those places, it added.

In East China\’s Fujian province, the local meteorological authority issued an orange alert on Sunday because of the high temperatures, the second most serious level in China\’s four-color heat warning system.

High temperatures that had already tortured the provincial capital of Fuzhou for two days by Sunday following torrential rains at the end of last month were expected to remain around 38 C for the following three days, meteorologists said.

And Fuzhou is likely to see the hottest days the year during the second half of July, when thermometers might soar up to 40 C in some places, meteorologists predicted.

To prevent pedestrians from fainting in the scorching heat while waiting to cross roads, the city has set up 1,350 sunshades at main traffic intersections.

Air conditioners have been selling well in the city since the start of the heat wave. A sales manager surnamed Chen at Gome Electrical Appliances\’ Baolong outlet in Fuzhou said the store has been selling about 40 air conditioners a day recently.

"Customers usually won\’t buy air conditioners until the hottest days come," he said. "But many of them cannot wait now because the temperature is already too much to bear."

At night, city parks are crowded with people exercising in the relative cool.

"I have been staying in rooms with air conditioning during the daytime, so I want to go out and get some fresh air in the park when the temperature cools down at night," said Lin De, a 37-year-old Fuzhou resident.

In Shanghai, the mercury topped 38 C on Sunday.

"It felt hard to breathe with the temperature so high," said Huang Wenfang, a tourist from the cooler Northeast China. "I planned to stay a few days more in Shanghai but now I have changed my mind."

The city\’s swimming pools, seaside areas and air-conditioned public facilities saw large crowds on Sunday. Due to safety concerns, some water parks had to turn people away.

"We had to ask some swimmers to come back an hour later," said a ticket seller at a swimming pool attached to the Shanghai International Gymnastics Center.

Meteorologists predicted that the weather in Shanghai will cool down a little starting on Tuesday, when the city expects some rain and a high of 35 C.

In Chongqing, the temperature climbed to 38.9 C on Saturday, the highest recorded temperature for that date for six decades. On Saturday, up to 30 people fainted or felt uncomfortable and were taken to hospitals because of the heat, local media reported.

Hot weather will persist in Chongqing for three more days and the temperature there could slip past 40 C, according to the local weather forecast.

Unlike hot and dry southern China, rain is forecasted for the nation\’s north.

Parts of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Qinghai province and Northeast China will see moderate rain, while storms are expected along the Yellow River and the Huaihe River.

Wang Zhenghua in Shanghai contributed to this story.&
$
<i>Source: China Daily</i>

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More heavy downpours in Sichuan Province since Monday evening has left two dead and six missing, bringing the rain-caused death toll to eight since June 30, the provincial flood control office said Thursday.

Continuous downpours have wreaked havoc in Sichuan since last Thursday, affecting more than 1.5 million people in four cities and 21 counties in the province, according to the flood control office.

From 8 p.m. Monday to 8 p.m. Wednesday, 46 monitoring spots from 16 counties have registered over 100 mm of rainfall, while precipitation at two spots exceeded 300 mm.

The downpours and rain-triggered floods have leveled about 10,000 houses and forced nearly 170,000 people to relocate, the office said.

Also, some 50,000 hectares of farmland were submerged in the agricultural province.

Rain-triggered mudslides have also cut off traffic on several highways.

A pivotal highway in the province, national highway 213, which was referred to as a "lifeline" by rescue workers following the devastating 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, was cut off due to mudslides at several sections.

Another highway, national highway 317, was also blocked by a mudslide at about 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

After repair work through the night, Highway 317 was reopened to small cars Thursday morning, while the lane for large vehicles was being repaired, according to government officials of Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) Thursday arranged an emergency shipping of 3,000 tents and 10,000 cotton-padded quilts to flood-hit areas in Sichuan from a government relief materials storage base in Chengdu, according to a ministry statement.

Also as part of China\’s emergency responses to the floods, the ministry along with the National Commission for Disaster Reduction (NCDR) Thursday dispatched a disaster relief and survey team to the flood zone in Sichuan.

Currently, the special work team is overseeing the flooding situations and assisting in the relief work in the municipality of Bazhong, Sichuan Province, the MCA statement said.

In Sichuan\’s neighboring Shaanxi Province where a rain-triggered landslide left 18 people dead and four injured in Lueyang County Tuesday, over 200 people living near the mudslide site have been relocated.

The county government is offering each evacuee 0.5 kg of grain and 10 yuan (1.55 U.S. dollars) daily. It also will give each of the four injured 4,000 yuan in condolence payments, said Yang Ruiliang, head of the county government.

In northeast China\’s Heilongjiang Province, hailstorms lashed the city of Bei\’an Wednesday night and Thursday morning, and destroyed 20,000 mu (1333 hectares) of crops, said Wang Deyou, deputy chief of the municipal Agriculture Bureau.

Two people are missing and four people were pulled out of debris alive after two rain-triggered landslides hit Taiyanghe Township of the city of Enshi in central China\’s Hubei Province Thursday.

Tropical cyclones and typhoons are forecasted to hit or seriously affect southern China\’s Guangdong Province with three or four tropical cyclones expected between July and September and a typhoon forecasted in August or September, according to the provincial flood control headquarters.

Source: Xinhua

Eight people were missing when mud-rock flow caused by heavy rain drowned a dormitory building at a chemical plant in southwest China\’s Sichuan Province early Sunday, local police said.

The accident happened shortly after midnight in the suburbs of Maoxian County in the Aba-Tibetan Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, said a spokesman with the fire prevention center of Aba\’s public security bureau.

When rescuers arrived at the site at 12:35 a.m., the first two stories of the four-story building were drowned and dozens were stranded, he said.

The rescuers used safety ropes to divert the trapped workers to the fourth floor before helping them down to the ground, the spokesman said.

He said 27 workers were saved by 2 a.m.

Eight people were reported missing, but no bodies were retrieved at the site.

Four officers were still searching for the missing.

The local weather bureau issued an alarm for geological disasters late Saturday. The county government evacuated more than 700 villagers overnight for safety considerations.

Source: Xinhua

More than 1,000 low-wage residents in Xi\’an, capital of Shaanxi province, waited in line for four days and three nights, in order to register for low-income housing on Sunday morning. "I got the message about the affordable housing project at about 8 pm on June 30 and found there were some 100 people in line outside the project sales office. I immediately joined them," said a 45-year-old man, surnamed Tian.

A happy Tian handed over his information to the sales office at about 8 am on Sunday along with more than 1,000 other residents who had all waited outside the office since June 30.

Those waiting in line ate and slept outside the sales office.

"In order to prevent people jumping the queue, we had to stay there day and night," said a resident, surnamed Min.

According to Min, she had hoped to buy an affordable house last year, but was told the houses were sold out after she passed the review by the local housing authority. "I did not want to lose the chance a second time," Min said.

The new residential project for low-and-medium wage earners is called Sunshine North County, it is located in a northern suburb of the city and was designed and developed by Xi\’an Municipal Real Estate Business No 2 Company.

According to Zhou Xiaoru, marketing director of the project, the sales office received about 1,000 applications for the affordable housing and they will now check the applicants qualify for low-income housing.

"We will make order numbers for those applicants who qualify for the affordable housing and then let them choose a house according to their order number," Zhou said.

The first phase of the project will provide some 700 houses and the company will advance the schedule of the second phase if the number of eligible applicants exceeds the houses provided in first phase. The second phase is due to be completed in 2014 when more than 2,800 affordable houses will be provided.

According to Zhou, the price of the affordable houses is expected to be 3,500 yuan ($541) per square meter, while the average price of real estate in the city was 7,299 yuan per sq m in June.

Hu Guangjie, director of housing ensuring division of Xi\’an Housing Ensuring and Management Bureau, said that only those residents who have no house, or a house less than 45 sq m, and earn a low wage can apply for the affordable housing, which was funded by the local government.

Xi\’an will increase the total floor area of affordable housing to 1.5 million sq m this year, up from 613,500 sq m last year.

Source: China Daily

Chinese defense ministry said Thursday that flying over China\’s sea areas by Chinese military aircraft accords with the international law.

The Japanese defense ministry reportedly alleged that two Chinese military aircraft on July 4th were, at one time, flying over the seas area some 60 kilometers away from the airspace of the Diaoyu Islands, but did not enter the "Japanese territorial airspace." The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force reportedly sent F-15 fighters to intercept them.

An official with China\’s Ministry of National Defense told reporters that Chinese military aircraft flying over sea areas under its jurisdiction completely accords with the international law.

The Diaoyu Islands and its affiliated islands have been China\’s inherent territory since ancient times and China has indisputable sovereignty over them, he added.

He pointed out that Japan\’s Air Self-Defense Force has, over recent years, stepped up China-targeted patrolling over the East China Sea and Japan\’s long-time and close-range tracking and surveillance of China\’s regular naval and air activities could easily lead to misunderstanding and misjudgment on both sides.

China hopes that the Japanese side would take effective measures and halt relevant risky activities so to avoid and prevent accidents both at sea and in the air, by taking into account China-Japan friendship and the need of increasing mutual trust.

Source: Xinhua

The Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Supervision publicized a list on Thursday of 73 officials from 31 cities and counties who had been punished for various infractions connected to the illegal use of land.

"In all these cities and counties, 15 percent of new land development was illegal, according to 2009 satellite images and the management of the market for land transfers has been disorderly," said Li Jianqin, director of the law enforcement and supervision department at the Ministry of Land and Resources.

Li told China Daily the 73 officials received administrative punishments that included warnings and demotions. He said no officials at the provincial level were involved.

It was the first time that such a large group of officials had been punished for their involvement in the illegal use of land.

The 31 cities and counties were largely in less-developed parts of China and first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen were not among them.

"The punishments will definitely sound an alarm bell among local authorities and strengthen their land protection measures," Li said.

He added that the proportion of illegally used land was around the benchmark 15 percent of total land used for development in the affected areas.

In May 2008, the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Supervision and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security jointly issued a document that declared an accountability system would be launched to protect the shrinking reserves of arable land.

According to the document, the authorities will look at satellite images from the previous year and compare them to the latest satellite images. If more than 15 percent of newly developed land has been illegally developed from supposedly protected farmland, the officials responsible for the illegal land grabs will be punished and could even be dismissed from their posts.

On Dec 16, the heads of 12 cities and regions known to have serious problems with the illegal use of agricultural land were invited by the Ministry of Land and Resources for a face-to-face chat about how they could strengthen their land protection efforts.

However, after that meeting, the deadline by which local authorities\’ records in land use were supposed to have been made public – February – was pushed back to July, triggering criticism from the public.

Li said the reason for the delay was to allow time to double-check the facts before handing out any punishments.

Yan Jinming, a land management professor at Renmin University of China, told China Daily that the delay was indicative of the pressure the two ministries are under as they try to crack down on the illegal use of land, which is common among local governments.

He said the fact that no first-tier cities were among the local authorities being criticized and punished shows that the ministries are taking a cautious approach.

"Anyway, this large list of authorities with illegal land use problems is the first of its kind and will alarm all local authorities," Yan said.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Land and Resources, as of 2009, more than 2 million hectares of damaged land had been reclaimed for farming. However, during the same period, 8.67 million hectares of farmland was lost – either to construction or because of natural disasters.

The percentage of land in China being used illegally for development has been falling. In 2006, 48.5 percent of development sites were on illegally used farmland. That number fell to 11.7 percent in 2009.

Between January and June, there were around 23,000 cases of illegally used land involving 9,067 hectares. The amount of land was less than the size of illegally used land during the same period in 2010.

In order to better protect the country\’s arable land, China is increasing its satellite surveillance of the country. In 2000, 66 cities, regions or counties were being monitored by satellite. In 2009, that number had risen to 2,895.

Source: China Daily

Five people were killed by rain-triggered floods that have inundated south China since Tuesday, according to the National Disaster Reduction Commission on Saturday.

The floods also forced the evacuation of 55,000 people and caused direct economic losses of 770 million yuan (119 million U.S.dollars), according to the commission.

A new round of rainstorms have been pounding south China over the last five days, triggering mudslides in the provinces of Zhejiang, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan and Yunnan.

Source: Xinhua