News » Society » Snow stymies travel plans of early birds
News » Society » Snow stymies travel plans of early birds |
- Snow stymies travel plans of early birds
- Backgrounder: China’s high-speed rail development
- Profiles of Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, Zhanggaoli
- Have You Heard…
- Aviation sector cleared for takeoff
- China’s Hanlong to obtain major African iron mine
- Schools policy benefits Shandong migrant kids
- 27 hurt as Macau ferry strikes buoy
- Monks lose TVs in drive to stop self-immolations
- Authorities in Qinghai province have confiscated television sets from 300 monasteries in a heavily Tibetan area and dismantled satellite equipment that broadcast "anti-China" programs following a slew of self-immolations.
- 27 injured in ferry collision in Macao
- China maintains blue alert for blizzards, cold snap
| Snow stymies travel plans of early birds Posted: 29 Dec 2012 09:13 AM PST HEAVY snow swept through central and northern China yesterday, grounding aircraft, halting trains and causing icy conditions on expressways. The winter's blast created misery for early bird travelers hoping to beat the upcoming travel rush for the Chinese Lunar New Year. Passengers stranded at airport terminals, railway stations and long-distance bus stations waited for conditions to improve. The railway operator issued a warning early yesterday, saying that trains, including high-speed bullet trains, would be running at slower speeds for safety reasons in areas - mainly in northern and central China - affected by heavy snows. Travelers were advised to check updated schedules. Among services affected was the newly opened Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed line - the world's longest high-speed rail line. The 2,298-kilometer link went into full operation on December 26. Other major routes, such as Shanghai-Beijing and Beijing-Tianjin, also suffered long delays and cancellations. On the Beijing-Shanghai route, 16 bullet train services were canceled yesterday and more than 30 others suffered long delays, ranging from more than one to almost six hours. The line was scheduled to have 144 services running yesterday. Trains to neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang also faced delays due to the weather. "I chose the train over flying because I was concerned flights might be delayed because of the snow," said a passenger, surnamed Sun, stranded yesterday at Shanghai's Hongqiao Railway Station. "I never figured that the train would be delayed too." Passengers vented their frustrations about the weather and delays on Weibo microblog. "I couldn't get a ticket refund on the railway's online ticket system," complained one customer. Passengers were asked to go to railway stations for refunds. Snow also affected 30 airports around the country, with planes grounded and passengers stranded. Some airports, such as Yanji in Jilin Province and Weifang in Shandong Province, were closed by the bad weather. Frozen roads Major air hubs, including Shanghai's two airports, reported delays. About 100 city flights were affected by yesterday afternoon. Chinese basketball star Yi Jianlian posted on his Weibo account that he had been ready to fly to Jinan, capital of Shandong Province, but was delayed as Jinan airport was closed. The Guangdong Southern Tigers star thanked fans for their greetings and messages. And the Beijing Ducks basketball team saw a four-hour road journey to northern Liaoning Province for a game take 10 hours. Other areas, such as central Shandong Province, were affected by frozen roads. The lead-up to the Spring Festival on February 10 will see tens of millions of people travel to their family homes in what has been called the world's biggest annual migration. While the rush officially starts on January 26, some early bird travelers had been hoping to get home this weekend. Meanwhile, Shanghai traffic authorities urged motorists to drive carefully, saying the wintry conditions will continue today. Port operations were halted in Shanghai's Yangshan Deep-water Port yesterday due to strong winds at the mouth of Yangtze River. |
| Backgrounder: China’s high-speed rail development Posted: 29 Dec 2012 10:16 AM PST  Source: Xinhua via Sina | Photo: Bloomberg The debut of the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway on Wednesday marked another significant step in China's plan to develop a high-speed rail network. The State Council, or China's cabinet, approved the Medium and Long-term Plan for Railway Network in 2004, paving the way for the country to start development of high-speed railways — railroads capable of accommodating trains with a traveling speed of 200 km per hour and beyond. High-speed trains traveled for the first time on April 18, 2007, when bullet trains running at 200-250 km per hour were put to use on several tracks, including the Beijing-Harbin, the Beijing-Shanghai and the Beijing-Guangzhou lines. The country's first high-speed railway, linking the Chinese capital Beijing and the neighboring port city Tianjin, was inaugurated on Aug. 1, 2008, with trains traveling at a speed that could reach 350 km per hour. An adjusted version of the Medium and Long-term Plan for Railway Network came into effect on Oct. 31, 2008. According to the plan, the total operation mileage of the country's express passenger railways will exceed 50,000 km by 2020, covering almost all Chinese cities with a population of 500,000 or above. The country's backbone high-speed rail network will be comprised of four north-east lines and four east-west lines, according to the plan. The four north-east railways will connect Beijing with metropolises like Shanghai and Guangzhou as well as the northeastern cities of Shenyang, Harbin and Dalian. They will also link southeastern coastal cities such as Hangzhou, Fuzhou and Shenzhen. The east-west lines will bridge the Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Shanghai high-speed routes and extend the network to western cities like Xi'an, Lanzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing and Kunming. On Dec. 26, 2009, the 1,069 km-long Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway was put into service. It was China's first long-distance high-speed rail track. On Dec. 3, 2010, a CRH-380A train set a new speed record of 486.1 km per hour on a test run on the 1,318-km Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, which officially started operation on June 30, 2011. On July 23, 2011, a high-speed train slammed into a stalled train near the eastern city of Wenzhou, resulting in 40 deaths and 172 people being injured. The accident, which was blamed on faulty signaling equipment and mismanagement, led to a nationwide rail safety check, speed reduction for bullet trains and stagnation in high-speed rail construction. The country cautiously resumed construction and operation of high-speed railways this year. Fixed-asset investment in railways rose 3.1 percent year on year to 506.97 billion yuan (81.1 billion U.S. dollars) during the first 11 months of 2012, according to Ministry of Railways data. The State Council adopted the 12th five-year plan for transportation system development in March this year, which plans for more than 40,000 km of express railways by the end of 2015 |
| Profiles of Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, Zhanggaoli Posted: 29 Dec 2012 10:13 AM PST  Source: Xinhua via Sina One lesson Liu Yunshan learned more than 30 years ago remains as he is elevated to the top leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). He follows the same principle while his pragmatic approach impresses people, whether he worked as a journalist for Xinhua News Agency or supervised cultural and ideological work, whether he lived in the border areas in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region or stays in Beijing, the Chinese capital. Along with Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli, Liu was elected on Nov. 15 into the seven-seat Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 18th CPC Central Committee. Since the new CPC leadership made their debut in mid November, Liu and other top leaders have been busy attending a series of symposiums soliciting public opinions on addressing China's problems. "Now our Party has a good line to follow and solid goals to attain. But what really matters is how we turn those ideas into action by improving the way we work, the manner we study and the style we write," Liu said at a symposium with entrepreneurs, professors, officials and representatives from communities in Beijing in early December. Wang Qishan: Rise of a troubleshooter "He can do it" was many observers' comment when Wang Qishan took up a challenging new mission last month to lead China's top discipline watchdog amid rising calls for crackdown on corruption. Simply more than a month into his new role, Wang has demonstrated the same style that previously won his fame as a troubleshooter in the economic field: tough, resolute and confident in front of difficulties. "Ethics of the Party determines its survival or demise," Wang told a symposium at the end of November, two weeks after he became secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC). "In the fight against corruption, we can not attain our goal at one stroke. We must convince the public that we are making more and more concrete efforts and delivering more and more powerful blows," he said. At the symposium, Wang asked his guests to forget empty formulae but go straight to their points. He also encouraged them to forget their prepared speech manuscripts but show their keen insights. "Please feel free to speak out what you want to say," Wang told the attendees. Zhang Gaoli: From "poor boy" to political figure When Zhang Gaoli was born into an impoverished peasant's family 66 years ago, no one might have imagined that he would become one of China's most powerful people. The self-dubbed "poor boy," however, made it when he was elected last month to the top slate of leadership of China's ruling party. Zhang became member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Nov. 15, along with Xi Jinping, elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan and Wang Qishan. The story of Zhang, who has ascended step by step to top ranks, is a typical example of personal struggle in the Chinese political sphere. Zhang's ancestors were all poor peasants in coastal Panjing Village, located in Jinjiang in southeast China's Fujian Province. His father died when Zhang was three years old. His mother managed to sustain his schooling despite family poverty. The diligent Zhang entered the prestigious Xiamen University in 1965, studying statistics in its Economics Department. After his graduation in 1970, four years into the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Zhang worked at the Maoming Oil Company in Guangdong. He spent more than a year working as a crane operator and loader, backpacking cement almost every day. He later became an office clerk, deputy secretary of the oil company's committee of the Communist Youth League of China, and deputy secretary of the Party committee of the company's refinery. In 1984, he made his way to general manager of the company and concurrently served as deputy secretary of the CPC Maoming city committee. An economist by training, Zhang began to lead the Guangdong provincial economic commission in 1985, and three years later became vice governor of Guangdong. |
| Posted: 29 Dec 2012 10:08 AM PST Have You Heard…   |
| Aviation sector cleared for takeoff Posted: 29 Dec 2012 10:28 AM PST  Source: By Meng Jing ( China Daily) In driving the economic powerhouse that is modern China there is probably no sector that has done more than the auto industry. But the roads of big Chinese cities are now bursting with cars, and it has become clear that the auto industry has hit a barrier. As efforts to restructure the economy steam ahead, policymakers have been on the lookout for other engines of growth, and some now have their eyes cast in one direction: the sky. What they have in their sights is general aviation, an industry that includes civil aviation other than commercial flights, and includes activities such as search and rescue, private flights and air charter services. In 2010 China's cabinet named general aviation as a strategic industry in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), and in November this year the country's air traffic management authority announced that airspace regulations would be relaxed from the beginning of next year. On top of that, in July the State Council issued guidelines for the development of the civil aviation industry, including estimates that flying time in general aviation will increase by an average of 19 percent a year between now and 2020. All of those signals are being interpreted in the industry as permission for takeoff. "General aviation has emerged as the next economic driving force after the car industry," said Ma Xin, deputy director of the National Air Traffic Management Committee Office in China, at the ninth Zhuhai Air Show, the largest international aerospace trade show in China, last month. "It's a high-tech sector. It has a long industrial chain that can drive the development of various sectors from raw materials in the upstream, to after-sales and maintenance services in the downstream. It has a much bigger role to play in China's economy." Ma said changes to the low-altitude airspace management system will spread from test areas to the rest of the country. Communications and surveillance facilities have already been built to ensure flight safety at the beginning of next year, and a trillion-yuan market is about to take off, he said. "As reforms forge ahead, we believe the general aviation industry will gain momentum and, as with cars, will become a new growth point." General aviation is not new to China, but it is one of the few sectors that have not experienced strong growth over the past 30 years, hemmed in by stringent airspace rules that have given priority to military, and now increasingly commercial, flights. For every takeoff, private aircraft owners have to go through a laborious process to obtain approval from the aviation authority. That has given rise to so-called black flying – taking to the air without approval – which has become more prevalent as rich Chinese splurge on their own aircraft. Gao Yuanyang, director of the general aviation industry research center at the School of Economics and Management at Beihang University in Beijing, said that generally when a region's GDP per capita exceeds $4,000 it is ready for a general aviation industry. "If its GDP per capita exceeds $10,000 a year it is ready for the development of business jets." Gao said China is more than ready for general aviation because its GDP per capita exceeded $4,000 a year in 2010, and per capita GDP in the well-developed Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas has surpassed $10,000 a year. "You need only compare the industry in China with that of the United States to see the potential," he said. In the US there were 230,000 aircraft last year, and the industry took in $150 billion and employed 1.2 million people. In China there were fewer than 1,200 registered aircraft, relatively few jobs and turnover estimated to be a fraction of that in the US. "China's population is four times that of the US, and geographically China is as big, so the potential is obvious," Gao said. Since China's reform and opening-up policy was launched in the late 1970s, nearly all the sectors that could turn into strong industries on a par with the potential that the general aviation industry has shown have done so, he said; general aviation has not. Christopher Jackson, a consultant in general aviation and director of project development for Genesis Investment of Shanghai, the sales representative in China for Cessna Aircraft, agrees, saying that general aviation accounts for 1.5 percent of US GDP. "General aviation in China accounts for around 0.0015 percent of GDP," said Jackson, who has been following general aviation in China for 12 years. "As the country tries to change its economy, drives its domestic consumption and creates jobs, the government sees general aviation as a major driving force to achieve that goal." The National Bureau of Statistics says the country produced about 700,000 motor vehicles in 1991. Ten years later 18.5 million rolled off the production line, nearly 17.8 million of them being sold to Chinese. The market for general aviation aircraft, ranging from helicopters to single-engine planes to business jets, is obviously a lot smaller, but it is the minuscule 1,200 registered aircraft that has the heads of industry insiders spinning. Among them are aircraft makers, particularly in North America and Europe, which have a much longer history in developing general aviation than does China. One such is Piaggio Aero of Italy, which delivered its first aircraft to China last month, and which nurses ambitions of being a big player in the Chinese market. "Europe and the US have been our largest markets for a long time," said John Bingham, chief marketing officer of Piaggio Aero. "But China has the most opportunities to become the largest market in the future, because of the booming economy and people's increasing desire to embrace what is in fact a much better way to travel." The European and North American markets have been in a lull because of the economic slump "for a ridiculous amount of time", Bingham said, "so we decided to open new markets to gain certifications to sell in 2009″. "We decided we could be more aggressive. We could go for some new markets, such as China." In doing so, the company has teamed up with the Chinese distributor CAEA Aviation Investment Company, and was due to hand over two P180 Avanti II twin turboprop aircrafts to the Beijing company by the end of this year. The aircraft is to be operated by CAEA subsidiary Free Sky Aviation in a new club-style shared-use program for private clients, Bingham said. The company is confident of its future in China, he said. Piaggio Aero is not alone in seeing the potential of the industry in China. The first time Bingham came to the Zhuhai Air Show, in 2004, just 12 aircraft were on display. At last month's show there were 100, illustrating how important China has become for aircraft makers, he said. The Civil Aviation Administration of China projects that the number of general aviation aircraft will grow from about 1,200 now to about 2,000 in 2015 and between 10,000 and 12,000 in 2020. Despite a slowdown in the economy, nearly all major companies remain optimistic about the Chinese market. In fact, aircraft makers and consultancies say that China is one of the markets driving demand in general aviation. A report by aircraft maker Bombardier predicts that 600 new business jets will be delivered to China by 2019; at present there are little more than 100 in the fleet. That is in line with strong purchases in the three years to 2011, when the number of business jets grew from 20 to 109. Gao of Beihang University said the number of business jets in China almost doubled from 2010 to 2011, and the new orders for business jets from China is about 20 percent of orders worldwide. Bombardier said in its report that worldwide demand for business jets correlates with wealth creation, which is largely driven by economic growth. A report in 2010 by Forbes said there were 1,011 billionaires in the world, 27 percent more than the previous year. The biggest rise was in China, where the number more than doubled to 107. In China the increasing number of billionaires and multimillionaires has also driven up sales of other aircraft, such as helicopters. At the start of this year, Bell Helicopter of the US, which first entered China in 1979, had 24 helicopters in service in the country; the company said that it will end the year with almost double that. "China represents the largest potential market in the world," said John Garrison, president and CEO of Bell Helicopter. "According to the recent forecasts there is a projected need for as many as 2,000 helicopters in China." Bell said he believes the country "can easily support" 2,000 helicopters in 10 years as the pace of airspace regulation reforms picks up. But China still lacks infrastructure such as airports for general aviation, and personnel, such as pilots and product support and maintenance, he says. With the stringent airspace rules, those two areas have been seen as a serious obstacle to the development of general aviation in China. "You can have as many aircraft as you want, but without the infrastructure it is like having a Ferrari sitting in the middle of a rice field with no roads to drive," said Jan Fridrich, vice-president of the Light Aircraft Association of the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic is a good case study of a country that has built a light aircraft industry from scratch. In just 10 years it has grown to an industry that produces 350 aircraft a year with an export value of 36 million euros, Fridrich said. The key is to provide a complete system of infrastructure essential to the industry, he said. Just as the car industry has been turbocharged as roads have been built across the country, a thriving general aviation sector cannot grow without a highly developed network of airports. There are now about 92 million automobiles in China, and many of them are now being driven on roads that have sprung up in the past year. In 2011 slightly more than 55,000 kilometers of road were opened, about 9,000 km of that being motorways, the statistics bureau said. In 1992 less than 2,400 km of road were built. Investment in large infrastructure has obviously been a huge driving force of the economy, and investment in general aviation is forecast to play a similar role. More importantly, unlike large infrastructure dominated by investment from State-owned enterprises, the building of general aviation airports may well be open to foreign investors as well as private Chinese companies. "Building airports for general aviation is not a mega project like building Beijing Capital International Airport," said Zou Jianming, chairman of Shanghai Zenisun Investment Group, a private Chinese company whose roots are in real estate development. "We've built five airports in Hainan and Fujian provinces over the past two years, and we plan to build 30 for general aviation by 2020." The company said the investment required to build airports varies widely, depending on their size, and the airports Zenisun has built cost between 100 million yuan and 150 million yuan. Zou entered the industry because of his personal interest in flying, first setting up a company to sell helicopters to the wealthy, before starting a general aviation business, which includes charters. The Civil Aviation Administration said there were 286 airports in China for general aviation last year, compared with 19,700 in the US. "To develop the sector we need to have more airports, at least one airport for each county in China," said Jin Qiansheng, director of the administrative committee of Shaanxi Aviation Economic and Technological Development Zone. That would mean there would be 3,000 airports and landing strips in the country, he said. Last month his zone signed a memorandum of understanding with a US company to co-fund a private equity worth 10 billion yuan for the development of general aviation in China, he said. "That's a good first step for us in attracting foreign investors. There is about 250 million yuan in the previous fund we set up with the local government in Shaanxi and private companies. With small amounts like that you can hardly play serious games, as with general aviation." The auto industry in China employs 40 million people, and if the general aviation industry is to take off it will have its work cut out to provide the labor and skills needed. However, there is a gaping hole at the moment, and that is providing huge opportunities to those who can offer pilot training, product support and maintenance and more. "There are not enough pilots," said Jackson of Genesis Investment, which began to look at investing in general aviation since last year. "Call any flight training school in the US and they will probably tell you there are some Chinese pilots training there. It is even difficult to find catering companies for business jets in China. If you want to have food you need to call those commercial airlines for help." Garrison of Bell Helicopter said the rapidly increasing demand for helicopters in China will require thousands of professionals to fly and maintain these aircraft. "There is not only an opportunity to help create these jobs, but also ensure China has access to the best operational and technical training possible." The world's leading business-jet maker, Gulfstream of the US, is also moving to strengthen its position in China by adding more Chinese personnel to its Beijing service center, which opened last month. "It is our first center in the Chinese mainland," said Roger Sperry, a regional senior vice-president with Gulfstream. "With this center it will be more cost effective for our customers in China to have services in the mainland rather than going to Hong Kong or Singapore." Sperry said that with demand for Gulfstream's business jets gradually shifting from North America to Asia and Latin America, more support staff are needed. "China is one of the major driving forces for our new orders." Last year 102 Gulfstream jets were stationed in China, he said; 10 years earlier there were none. The company has already added about 1,400 employees this year, including those at its Beijing service center, and in a department in Hong Kong it also opened this year.   |
| China’s Hanlong to obtain major African iron mine Posted: 29 Dec 2012 10:30 AM PST  Source: Xinhua via china.org.cn Chinese mining firm Hanlong is expected to take over Australia's Sundance in February, the company disclosed, a move that will put it in control of a major iron ore mine in west Africa. Hanlong will pay 0.45 Australian dollars per share to buy Sundance shares — a price agreed upon in August 2012. The offer will save Hanlong 2 billion yuan (315 million U.S. dollars) for the deal, which was originally valued at 1.7 billion Australian dollars (1.76 billion U.S. dollars). Sundance controls the Mbalam Iron Ore Mine in Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. Hanlong executives have disclosed that the company is in talks with leading state firms to jointly develop the mine. Hanlong is investing 5 billion U.S. dollars to develop its first mining project in Mbalam, as well as build a 550-km railway and a shipping port. It is slated to start operating in 2014, the company officials said. The Mbalam mine — composed of the Mbarga fields in Cameroon and the Nabeba fields in the Republic of Congo — holds 865 million to 925 million tonnes of iron ore, according to an initial estimate. Observers say Hanlong's control of the Mbalam mine will give China greater influence in international iron ore pricing talks. The Hanlong Group owns or has stakes in more than 30 firms with combined assets totalling 36 billion yuan. The group says its annual revenues are about 1.6 billion yuan.   |
| Schools policy benefits Shandong migrant kids Posted: 29 Dec 2012 08:17 AM PST A NEW education policy issued early this month has enabled migrant worker Qin Lihong to make long-term plans for her family. Qin finally decided to settle down in Qingdao, in east China's Shandong Province, after living there for eight years, because the provincial government now allows children of migrant workers, like her daughter, to take the college entrance exam there even if they are not permanent residents. Since different provinces adopt different textbooks and teaching and exam systems, having to take the entrance exam outside the province where the students have studied may put them at a huge disadvantage. Exam in hometown "Our household registrations are not in Qingdao, so our daughter would have had to take the exam in our hometown instead of here, which meant the whole family would have to move back for the exam," said the 32-year-old saleswoman at an electronic appliance store. Qin and her husband, who earn 5,000 yuan (US$794) per month, say they like prosperous coastal city Qingdao. "That's why we were always wavering between going home or staying here," she said. Under the new policy, their daughter, who is in her fourth year of primary school, can continue her education in Qingdao. In Shandong schools, the number of children from migrant families totaled 745,100 last year, a year-on-year rise of 17 percent. "We adopted this policy hoping to improve the education equality among all students in the province," said Si Jingui, an official in charge of student affairs under Shandong's local education authority. "People in China should enjoy equal rights and interests in terms of politics, the economy and culture, regardless of whether they live in cities or in the countryside," said Xie Chuntao, a professor with the Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee. The report to the 18th CPC National Congress has pledged to safeguard social fairness and justice, as "fairness and justice are inherent requirements of socialism with Chinese characteristics." The report said the CPC will work to establish a system guaranteeing social equity, featuring "equal rights, equal opportunities and fair rules for all."
|
| 27 hurt as Macau ferry strikes buoy Posted: 29 Dec 2012 08:16 AM PST TWENTY-SEVEN people were injured when a ferry struck a buoy at Macau Outer Harbor yesterday, the local police authority said. The ship, carrying 175 passengers and eight crew, had left for Hong Kong at 12:15am. It had been sailing for 15 minutes when it hit the buoy. One passenger said he had been resting in his seat when he heard a loud bang and was jolted by the impact. He said that he escaped injury as he had his seat belt on, but that passengers who had not fastened theirs were hurt. The ship sailed back to the harbor. Police said 27 passengers were injured, with 25 sent to hospital. Most had scratches and bruising. An initial inquiry has been launched. |
| Monks lose TVs in drive to stop self-immolations Posted: 29 Dec 2012 05:19 AM PST Ad: The $4 Million Monster - $135.00 Avg Commission! Lowest Refunds On CB - Over $4 Million In 2011/12. Shocking 14 Percent Refund Rate, Over $128 To You Per Sale, Massive Daily Contests, And Recurring Commissions For Life... Promote The Hottest Offer On CB Right Now. See Video Proof: Http://gsniper2.com/affiliates |
| Posted: 29 Dec 2012 05:19 AM PST Ad: Imwithjamie: Real Training - Jamie Lewis Teaches 2 Classes A Week For Three Months All For $39.00 = Conversions. $3.00 Epc's Easy! Try This With Members Traffic. Its An Awesome Backend Monetization Tool. Look At This! Http://www.jamielewis.info/jvinvite.php |
| 27 injured in ferry collision in Macao Posted: 29 Dec 2012 12:09 AM PST TWENTY seven people were injured in a ferry collision in Macao Outer Harbor today, according to sources from the local police authority. The passenger ship carrying 175 passengers and 8 crews, leaving for Hong Kong at 12:15 am, knocked down a buoy about 15 minutes after departure. A passenger said, he heard a big sound when he was taking rest and he was not hurt with his seat belt on. But many people who didn't fasten their seat-belts get injured during the collision. The ship sailed back to the ferry after the collision. The police authority confirmed that 27 passengers were injured, 25 of them had been sent to hospital immediately, and most of them were slight contuse and scratching. Related government departments have launched the emergency mechanism after the collision. |
| China maintains blue alert for blizzards, cold snap Posted: 28 Dec 2012 09:19 PM PST CHINA'S National Meteorological Center(NMC) today maintained its blue alert for blizzards and a severe cold snap in the next 24 to 48 hours. Eastern parts of northeast China's Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, coastal areas of Shandong Province and northeastern parts of Guizhou Province will see heavy snowfall and possibly blizzards in the coming 24 hours. Snow or blizzards will also hit parts of Hunan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. Central and western Guizhou will see freezing rain, the NMC forecast early Saturday morning. Along with heavy snow, gales will chill these areas in the following 48 hours, with temperature drops of 6-12 degrees Celsius. The observatory has advised residents to take measures to prepare for the upcoming snow and cold snap. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Update » News » Society To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Comments