Typhoon Kaemi struck the south-east coast of China on Tuesday, sparking the evacuation of more than 500 000 people in an area still reeling from a tropical storm that claimed more than 600 lives. The typhoon first passed over Taiwan, causing widespread disruption to daily life but not enormous damage.
A typhoon triggered floods and knocked out power in some areas of Taiwan on Tuesday, forcing schools and offices to close, and then swept towards China, where hundreds of thousands were evacuated. As of 7am GMT, the centre of typhoon Kaemi was just off China’s eastern coast moving north-west at 17kph toward the city of Xiamen.
The death toll in China from Tropical Storm Bilis has risen to 612, with another 208 people missing, state media said on Monday in another major reassessment of the impact of the devastating floods. Xinhua news agency, citing the nation’s disaster-relief commission, gave no reason for the sudden jump in the casualty numbers from the storm.
Chinese authorities were warned against cover-ups on Saturday after the death toll from Tropical Storm Bilis more than doubled overnight. A week after Bilis made landfall, the official number of people killed in gales and floods was given at 518, nearly 300 more than the 228 previously reported, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
At least 160 hidden deaths in a central Chinese province pushed the death toll to 482 from floods and landslides caused by Tropical Storm Bilis over the past week, state media said on Friday. Floods and landslides caused by Bilis destroyed tens of thousands of homes and left damage estimated at 20-billion yuan (,5-billion).
The death toll in China from Tropical Storm Bilis has risen to 198, official media said on Tuesday, as 140 people remained missing and heavy rain continued to pound the south of the country. Forecasters had expected the storm to weaken as it hit mainland China but instead it brought more death and destruction, as well as paralysing transport and communications infrastructure.
Torrential rains have killed at least 170 people across south China since the weekend, flooding cities, sweeping away houses and cutting off utilities as well as rail and road links, state media reported on Monday. The rains were triggered by tropical storm Bilis, which killed dozens in the Philippines and Taiwan before hitting China on Friday.
Forty years ago during the Cultural Revolution, it took an edict from China’s then premier Zhou Enlai to protect the Potala Palace from the destruction of the infamous Red Guards. Now a new menace — tourism — threatens the jewel of Tibetan Buddhism, which has come to be the symbol of Tibet.
The death toll from severe rainstorms and flooding across China in the aftermath of severe Tropical Storm Bilis has risen to 154, state media said on Monday. Torrential rain hit several provinces including Fujian, Hunan, Guangdong, Jiangxi and Zhejiang in the aftermath of the storm, forcing millions of residents to be evacuated and wreaking havoc on transport and communications.
Chinese officials have expressed concern that the media furore surrounding world record hurdler Liu Xiang could harm his career, state media reported on Thursday. They quoted athletics official Yu Weili as calling for more privacy for Liu, who set a new world record in the 110m hurdles with a time of 12,88 seconds in Lausanne on Tuesday.
An apparently intoxicated Jackie Chan disrupted a concert by Taiwanese singer-songwriter Jonathan Lee in Hong Kong and exchanged insults with the audience, a news report said on Tuesday. Ming Pao Daily News said Chan suddenly jumped on stage at the concert on Monday night and demanded a duet with Lee. He then tried to conduct the band but stopped and restarted the music several times.
China opened the world’s highest railway on Saturday, linking the remote Himalayan region of Tibet with the rest of the country in a symbol of power that President Hu Jintao hailed a ”miracle”. Hu launched the rail line to coincide with the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
Abortions based on gender selection will remain legal in China after lawmakers could not agree on a planned law to criminalise the practice, state press reported on Monday. The planned amendment to the criminal law would have allowed jail sentences of up to three years for people involved in abortions based on the sex of the foetus, the China Daily reported.
Tourists to the Great Wall of China more often than not get a decidedly modern view of the ancient structure, walking along stretches rebuilt and repaved to handle millions of visitors every year. But a battle-scarred section in the historic garrison town of Zhangjiakou, 180km north-west of Beijing, is one of the first to allow visitors to walk next to the ancient edifice in its natural state.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday the international incentive offer to curtail his nation’s nuclear programme was a ”step forward” that would be carefully considered. ”We will give a response in due time in line with the international interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Ahmadinejad told a press conference.
Bird flu may have become more virulent, increasing the risk to humans, Hong Kong’s health chief warned on Friday following the latest infection in a neighbouring Chinese city. China on Thursday confirmed its 19th human case of bird flu, a 31-year-old man from the southern economic boom town of Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong, who is critically ill in hospital.
Fifty-five people are dead or missing from flash floods that ripped through south-western China’s Guizhou province early this week, the government said on Wednesday. At least 25 people were confirmed dead from the flooding in mountainous areas of Guizhou, while another 30 people were missing, the state flood-control headquarters reported.
British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking said on Tuesday that the human race should reach for the stars in order to survive. Speaking on a six-day visit to Hong Kong, Hawking said: ”It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species.
China’s largest refiner Sinopec has acquired stakes in Angolan oil exploration blocks, state press reported on Tuesday, marking another success in the Asian nation’s global quest for more sources of fuel. The three blocks have total proven reserves of 3,2-billion barrels of oil and are expected to boost oil production for Sinopec by 100 000 barrels a day.
About 7 000 residents have been evacuated in south China after landslides caused by heavy rain damaged homes amid stormy weather, which has wreaked havoc in the region for days and killed dozens of people, state media said. The evacuees moved out of their homes in Heping County in Guangdong province after a series of landslides hit the area.
Cathay Pacific fulfilled a long-held ambition on Friday to gain greater access to the key Chinese market when it announced a deal to take over its smaller local rival Dragonair and cement ties with Air China, the mainland’s flag carrier. The complicated cross-sharing deal that took over two years to finalise sees state-run Air China and Cathay Pacific code-share on all routes and operate others under a profit share arrangement.
China said on Friday it was "erroneous and one-sided" to believe that it is only interested in Africa because of its energy resources, arguing it had comprehensive ties with the continent. Assistant Foreign Minister He Yafei made the remark at a briefing ahead of a visit by Premier Wen Jiabao to seven African nations.
China said on Thursday it is battling a proliferation of new power plants that are being built without permission and threaten to upset plans for a more environmentally friendly energy mix. Local authorities have been moving ahead with new power plant construction to meet a serious electricity shortage in recent years.
The <i>Google.com</i> search engine has been blocked in most parts of China, as Beijing steps up its efforts to restrict the public’s access to information, a Paris-based media watchdog said. Internet users in many major Chinese cities have had difficulty connecting to the uncensored international version of Google for the past week, Reporters sans Frontières said in a statement received on Wednesday.
Storms pummeling southern China in the past week have killed at least 46 people and left tens of thousands homeless, a state-run newspaper said on Wednesday. The worst-hit has been Fujian province, where heavy rains have triggered floods and landslides that have killed 26 people since May 29, the China Daily said, citing Li Baojun, an official with the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
To prevent students from cheating during school exams, Taiwan on Monday banned the use of invisible-ink pens. ”We will bar students from using invisible-ink pens during exams because many students are cheating with these pens,” Lee Yu-Chuan, from the Education Ministry’s Department of Higher Education, told a news conference.
A military transport plane carrying 40 people crashed in eastern China’s Anhui province on Saturday, the government said on Sunday. A local official said at least five people were killed. Villagers described a chaotic crash scene, with bodies and body parts strewn across a mountain slope where the plane crashed and burned.
Shares of the Bank of China rose more than 14% by midday on Thursday during their debut on Hong Kong’s stock market, with indications of strong demand from investors around the globe eager to tap into the country’s galloping economy. The bank raised ,7-billion in an initial public offering — the world’s biggest in six years — that valued the shares at HK,95 each.
China’s will next month increase down-payments on home loans and broaden the capital gains tax, moves analysts said on Tuesday should help cool the overheated real estate sector in the short term. The down-payment on homes above 90 square metres would be raised to 30% from 20%, as authorities target the high-end of the property market.
The powerful earthquake that hit Indonesia was just the latest display of violent seismic activity on the archipelago, which stretches across one of the most unstable parts of the Earth’s surface. The country’s position on the planet’s crust means it will continue to experience such catastrophes, just as it has done for the past 50-million years or so.
A severe earthquake estimated to measure 6,7 on the Richter scale on Monday struck in the north-eastern Pacific coastal area of Russia, the Hong Kong observatory said. The quake struck at 7.21pm Hong Kong time and its epicentre was located some 870km east of the Siberian city of Magadan, the observatory said.
Electricity shortages were slowing attempts to clear a flooded mine shaft on Monday, and community members began to lose hope for 57 miners trapped for a fourth day in China’s worst mining accident this year. ”We must go all out to rescue these men. But we also need to start preparing for the worst,” said the mayor of the nearby city Datong.