CHINA
4 | Wednesday, August 7, 2019 CHINA DAILY
Early morning Shiyan flash flood kills 13
By LI LEI in Beijing
and LIU KUN in WuhanThirteen people died in a flash
flood that hit Shiyan, northwest
Hubei province, at around 4 am on
Tuesday, according to the municipal
government.
Local meteorological authorities
had reported more than 170 milli-
meters of rainfall between 2:30 am
and 5 am in the city’s Yunyang dis-
trict, where the deadly torrent hit,
and said the overnight storm was
the heaviest in its recorded history.
The city government said a team
of about 160 rescuers had been sent
out, and displaced people were
transferred to a nearby primary
school, with a makeshift medical
center set up there.
The Ministry of Emergency Man-
agement on Tuesday urged the local
government to speed up the relief
effort, closely monitor potential geo-
logical disasters and issue disaster
warnings in rain-affected areas in a
timely manner.
It was the second deadly flash
flood in Hubei since the weekend. A
torrent on Sunday killed 13 tourists
in Duobi Gorge of Pingshan Moun-
tain, in Hefeng county, in the south-
west part of the province.
All victims were confirmed to be
unregistered visitors between the
ages of 22 and 62 on independent
driving tours to the primitive gorge.
Five were Hubei natives, four were
from Hunan province and the
remaining four hailed from Chong-
qing, county authorities said in a
statement on Tuesday.
Among the 61 rescued, five werestill hospitalized for light injuries,
while the rest were discharged after
brief treatment, the statement said.
The county’s tourism authorities
have been warning travelers not to
visit the gorge and other sites in
Pingshan Mountain since 2015
because the area remains largely
undeveloped. Local travel agencies
have been banned from offering
tours to such sites.
Adventurers had often referred to
the 5,000-meter-long gorge as the
Chinese Semporna because the crys-
tal clear creeks between skyrocketing
mountains resemble the sea near the
Malaysian diving resort.
That has given rise to illegal
tours provided by nearby villagers
or unlicensed guides. People who
had recently visited the gorge said
illegal tours were easily availablefor around 400 yuan ($57) per per-
son.
The county government said last
year they criticized and punished up
to 500 individuals involved in unli-
censed tours to the gorge. Notices
had also been sent out via internet
and posted at major roads and pub-
lic places across the county, it said.
Li Shifu, the county’s spokesman,
said local authorities had repeatedly
cracked down on such activities, but
the result remained unsatisfactory
because visitors could still slip in
through numerous hidden routes
when law enforcement was off duty.
“It is like a game of cat and mouse,”
the spokesman was quoted by CCTV
as saying.Contact the writers at
[email protected]Debris lies strewn over a street in the Yunyang district of Shiyan,
Hubei province, after flooding on Tuesday.PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILYAerial survey pinpoints
Yangtze sewage outlets
By ZHANG YANGFEI in Beijing
and ZHOU LIHUA in Wuhan
Hubei province has completed an
aerial survey of all sewage outlets
that discharge into the area along
the Yangtze River and its tributaries
that flow through the province.
It was the first time that the
province carried out such a full-
scale survey, which also serves as
important groundwork for a
national campaign, launched this
February, to comb the banks of the
Yangtze River and map all such
outlets along the country’s longest
waterway.
The aerial survey was the first
step in the campaign to clarify the
exact number of sewage outlets
and how much they discharge
before the government undertakes
more tailor-made measures to
improve the water quality.
From July 10 to 31, the survey in
Hubei collected 185,294 photos
and covered 11,212 square kilome-
ters within 5 kilometers of the riv-
ers, successfully finishing the work
in the Yangtze River’s largest and
longest drainage region.
It is one of the 11 provincial-level
regions along the Yangtze River
Economic Belt engaged in the
campaign.
According to the provincial ecol-
ogy and environment bureau,
Hubei province accounts for more
than one-quarter of the Yangtze
basin area that flows into the
Yangtze River, Hanjiang River and
Qingjiang River.
“The water system is complex and
the coastal topography and land-
forms are various. The task is very
heavy and the time is urgent,” it said.
Ma Li, director of the remote
sensing institute Yangtze River
Space Information Engineering
Technology Company, said the sur-
vey was conducted during the
rainy season and Hubei happened
to be very rainy this year.
“It was difficult for aircraft to
take off in the rain, and the clouds
were very thick and low. The aerial
pictures basically snapped clouds
all the time,” he said, adding that
lack of airspace control due to fre-
quent military operations also fac-
tored into the difficulty of the
effort.
To ensure the survey could be
carried out smoothly, teams of
experts used various aircraft
including unmanned aerial vehi-
cles, manned fixed-wing aircraft
and helicopters that were
equipped with large aerial cameras
and thermal infrared sensors to
collect data.
“We sent as many planes as pos-
sible whenever the weather
allowed and ensured that we took
the shot first regardless of the
quality. We could edit the pictures
afterward,” Ma said.
He said most of the time they
sent manned aircraft first, which
could fly for a relatively longer
time and cover a wide area. Then
they used unmanned drones,
which tend to be more agile and
weather resistant, to fill in small
and difficult areas.
The thermal infrared camera
mounted on the drones also
helped capture photos of the
shoreline at night to spot the out-
lets by the difference in sewage
temperature.
These pictures will be analyzed
by experts from the ministry to
locate suspected sewage outlets
before they take on-site trips to
map out all of them.
Early this year, the Ministry of
Ecology and Environment and the
National Development and
Reform Commission released a
circular on Yangtze restoration,
vowing to comprehensively
improve water quality by 2020.Contact the writers at zhangyang-
[email protected]Briefly
BEIJING
Nation to honor
200 role models
China will select and honor 200
people as role models for their
outstanding performance over
the seven decades since the
founding of the People’s Republic
of China. An online vote for can-
didates concluded on Monday,
attracting more than 115 million
votes and 200 million views
within 15 days, said the organiz-
ing committee. A total of 722
candidates were recommended.
The campaign was launched in
mid-June by central authorities
including the Publicity Depart-
ment of the Communist Party of
China Central Committee and
the Organization Department of
the CPC Central Committee.LIAONING
144 suspects caught
in pyramid scheme
A total of 144 suspects have been
caught and accused of organiz-
ing and leading a pyramid
scheme involving more than 85
million yuan ($12.1 million),
police in the city of Dalian said
on Monday. After a thorough
investigation, police dispatched
more than 1,000 officers in 129
teams to relevant provinces and
municipalities in mid-June and
caught a total of 144 suspects,
including two ringleaders sur-
named Chen and Ban. Police also
seized 43 vehicles and froze more
than 85 million yuan in nearly
6,000 accounts.YUNNAN
33 kg of drugs seized,
2 suspects nabbed
Police in Yunnan province cap-
tured two suspected drug traf-
fickers and seized 33.1 kilograms
of drugs, local authorities said
on Tuesday. Police officers in
Gengma county checked a vehi-
cle with a foreign license plate
and found 60 drug packages
hidden in the vehicle. The sus-
pect was captured on the spot,
while another suspect was
nabbed later the same day. Yun-
nan is a major front in China’s
battle against drug crime, as it
borders the Golden Triangle
known for drug production and
trafficking.XINHUAPlan targets
protection of
natural forest
Nation to hit 200 million hectares,
realize fully functioning ecosystem
By YANG WANLI
[email protected]
China has unveiled a plan to
protect and restore the country’s
forests, with the aim of reaching a
total area of 200 million hectares
by 2035.
According to the plan, released by
the State Council recently, a mecha-
nism for forest protection and resto-
ration will be built for all of the
country’s natural forests by 2020.
By 2050, a fully functioning eco-
system will be complete, which
will play a fundamental role in the
country’s sustainable develop-
ment goals.
“The plan shows our principle of
making environmental protection
the priority and realizing a harmo-
nious coexistence between nature
and humans,” a top official from
the National Forestry and Grass-
land Administration said in a
recent interview.
“It also shows China’s signifi-
cant contribution to tackling
world climate change and our con-
fidence to build a beautiful China
through ecological progress,” the
official said.
In 1998, the Chinese government
implemented the Natural Forest
Protection Program in 16 provinces,
including Heilongjiang, Jilin, Hebei,
Yunnan, Hunan and Liaoning.
The program included logging
restrictions, protected areas,
replanting and a range of other
policies aimed at safeguarding the
country’s forests and reducing the
risk of erosion and flooding.
China has 197 million hectares of
forests. In the past two decades, the
central government has spent more
than 400 billion yuan ($57 billion)
protecting about 129 million hec-
tares of forest, of which 28.5 million
hectares were planted during the
period.
Thanks to the program, many
provinces now enjoy forest cover-
age of about 60 percent.
It also benefits the local environ-
ment: Along the Yangtze River, for
example, sand content dropped by
90 percent from 2000 to 2016. In
Hainan province, Hainan gibbons
— a critically endangered species
— witnessed population growth
from only seven in 1998 to 29 last
year due to the program.
According to the plan, top local
government officials will be respon-
sible for the protection work.
Moreover, all commercial log-
ging of natural forests will be pro-
hibited nationwide. In some core
areas, other commercial activities
will also be banned.
The forestry department will
strengthen the restoration of some
degraded natural forests and
speed up the work to build a sur-
veillance system for protection
and restoration work.
“A strict management system
will also be established. Anyone
who conducts illegal activity that
damages natural forests or threat-
ens public interests will be pun-
ished,” said Li Shuming, deputy
head of the administration.
Li said the government will take
the lead in implementing the plan
and encourage participation from
the public. He said the protection
and restoration work aim to bring
prosperity to the people through
eco-friendly development.
“The plan is expected to drive
China’s natural forest protection
work to a new stage,” Li said.70 YEARS ON | JILINA fishskin painting from Jilin province attracts visitors at a show in Beijing on Tuesday. The show is of a
series organized by the State Council Information Office to promote new development ideas and find
new paths to revitalization of the area. ZHU XINGXIN / CHINA DAILYJilin promotes natural resources
in effort to increase local tourism
By YANG WANLI
[email protected]Jilin province will continue to pro-
mote sustainable development and
boost local tourism by opening its
doors to winter sports, the top offi-
cial of the province said on Tuesday.
“Jilin holds a great wealth of natu-
ral resources, which should be high-
ly valued,” said Bayanqolu, Party
chief of Jilin province.
He said the ecology as well as the
ice and snow in Jilin will benefit local
people and the province’s future
development over the long term.
The forestry industry in Jilin had
a total production value of nearly
140 billion yuan ($19.9 billion) last
year.
Currently, the east part of the
province has forest coverage of 78
percent, while the Changbaishan
National Nature Reserve has cover-
age of about 98 percent.
Commercial logging has been
prohibited within the province in
recent years, according to Bayanqo-
lu, and the local government has
encouraged the development of sec-
tors, including natural under-ground springs
and traditional
Chinese herbs.
Since the North-
east China Tiger
and Leopard
National Park
opened as one of
China’s first 10
national parks in
2017, the number of Siberian tigers
in the park area has increased from
seven to 27, while Amur leopards
grew from three to 42, he said.
“The success of wildlife protec-
tion can be proved from the settle-
ment of wild animals. The increase
of those endangered animals indi-
cated the improvement of the local
ecological system,” Bayanqolu said.
Moreover, a massive construction
plan connecting the province’s
major rivers and lakes was launched
in 2013, helping to recover wetlands
covering about 3,500 square kilo-
meters.
“Ecological protection and the
scientific use of natural resources
are both important. We will further
promote the green industry in Jilin
and achieve harmonious develop-ment between people and nature,”
Bayanqolu said.
Jilin will also take advantage of its
location and promote tourism for
winter sports, according to Jing Jun-
hai, governor of the province.
Statistics from the Jilin Depart-
ment of Culture and Tourism showed
that the province received nearly 84
million tourists between November
and March. Tourism revenue during
the period hit 170 billion yuan, a
surge of 20 percent year-on-year.
Three of its biggest ski resorts —
Vanke Songhua Lake Resort, Beida-
hu Ski Resort and Changbaishan
International Ski Resort — were
ranked the top three most popular
ski resorts in the country.
In February, Beishan Mountain
Ski Resort — the first cross-country
ski resort that can be used during all
four seasons in Asia — was undergo-
ing trial runs.
“Jilin has long been a strong play-
er in China’s winter sports scene due
to its high-quality facilities and rich
snow and ice resources. The 2022
Winter Olympics will boost winter
sports in China, which is a great
opportunity for us,” Jing said.BayanqoluMissiles :
Regional
balance
at stake,
expert says
deployment plan indicates that
its military strategy center is
moving to the Asia-Pacific
region, making safety concerns
a priority among the related
parties.”
Zuo Xiying, a professor of
international relations at Ren-
min University of China, said the
US intention may cause changes
in the strategic balance in the
Asia-Pacific, breaking the exist-
ing strategic equilibrium as well
as exacerbating the arms race.
On the other hand, Zuo said it
would take a relatively long time
to reach a new balance if the
deployment proceeds.
“Before there is a new strategic
balance, the overall security situa-
tion in the Asia-Pacific region may
have more uncertainty, affecting
all related stakeholders, including
China, the US and Japan.”
On Monday, Australia ruled
out the possibility of missiles
being deployed in its territory,
saying that Canberra had not
been asked to host them.
Fan called the US announce-
ment “a typical way for Washing-
ton to force other countries to
fulfill what it wants”, and said
China will not join negotiations
for a new INF treaty or accept its
multilateralization.Contact the writers at
[email protected]From page 1