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Tag Archives: province
90 percent of people in Henan province, China have COVID
As China battles an unprecedented COVID surge, nearly 90% of Henan — the third-most populous province — has been infected with the virus, a top health official said Monday.
Kan Quancheng, director of the health commission for central Henan province, said that as of Jan. 6, the infection rate was 89%.
With Henan’s population being about 99.4 million, the data would suggest that 88.5 million residents have been positive for COVID.
Visits to fever clinics hit their peak on Dec. 19 — mere weeks after China began easing its brutal “zero-COVID” policies.
After that surge late last month, the number of COVID cases “showed a continuous downward trend,” Kan said during a press conference Monday.
The data from Henan are vastly different from the COVID figures China’s central government has shared since the start of December. According to officials, only 120,000 people out of 1.4 billion have been infected, and only 30 have died since the end of “zero-COVID.”
After three years, China’s borders reopened Sunday, marking an official end to the country’s “zero-COVID” policies, which involved requiring incoming travelers to quarantine.
But even as Beijing drops its quarantine requirements, many countries across the globe are demanding negative tests from visitors from China in hopes that it will contain the outbreak that’s overwhelming China’s hospitals and funeral homes.
COVID cases are expected to increase especially as China looks to celebrate the lunar new year later this month, when millions of residents are expected to leave cities and visit family in more rural areas.
With Post wires
China earthquake: 6.6-magnitude quake hits southwestern Sichuan province
A 6.6-magnitude earthquake with a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles) was reported southwest of Sichuan’s capital Chengdu close to 1 p.m. local time on Monday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported.
The quake’s epicenter was about 43 kilometers (27 miles) southeast of Kangding, a city of around 100,000 people, according to the USGS.
At least 50 people were also injured and 16 other remain missing, CCTV reported.
Over a million residents in surrounding areas are estimated to have experienced moderate tremors in the aftermath of the quake, it added.
China activated a Level 3 emergency response and dispatched rescue workers to Luding County near the epicenter, according to China’s State Council. Chinese broadcaster CGTN said rescue workers were helping to clear roads blocked by landslides triggered by the quake.
Sichuan, a province of 84 million people, was already facing a very challenging summer before the powerful quake. In the last two months, the province has endured drought and its worst heatwaves in 60 years.
The landlocked area is prone to earthquakes because of the Langmenshan Fault which runs through Sichuan’s mountains.
A 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Sichuan in 2008 was one of the country’s most devastating. Almost 90,000 people were killed and tremors were felt in cities more than 1,450 kilometers (900 miles) away.
Last year, a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan, killing three people and injuring 60, according to state media at the time.
China earthquake: 6.6-magnitude quake hits southwestern Sichuan province
A 6.6-magnitude earthquake with a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles) was reported southwest of Sichuan’s capital Chengdu close to 1 p.m. local time on Monday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported.
The quake’s epicenter was about 43 kilometers (27 miles) southeast of Kangding, a city of around 100,000 people, according to the USGS.
Over a million residents in surrounding areas are estimated to have experienced moderate tremors in the aftermath of the quake, it added.
China activated a Level 3 emergency response and dispatched rescue workers to Luding County near the epicenter, according to China’s State Council. Chinese broadcaster CGTN said rescue workers were helping to clear roads blocked by landslides triggered by the quake.
Sichuan, a province of 84 million people, was already facing a very challenging summer before the powerful quake. In the last two months, the province has endured drought and its worst heatwaves in 60 years.
The landlocked area is prone to earthquakes because of the Langmenshan Fault which runs through Sichuan’s mountains.
A 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Sichuan in 2008 was one of the country’s most devastating. Almost 90,000 people were killed and tremors were felt in cities more than 1,450 kilometers (900 miles) away.
Last year, a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan, killing three people and injuring 60, according to state media at the time.
Philippines earthquake: 7.1-magnitude quake strikes Abra province, impact felt in Manila
The quake struck in northern Luzon, the country’s most populous island, at 8:43 a.m. local time (8:43 p.m. ET), according to USGS. The agency originally designated the quake 7.1-magnitude, before downgrading it to 7.0.
Its epicenter was about 13 kilometers (8 miles) southeast of the small town of Dolores, Abra province, with a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), according to USGS.
The earthquake’s impact was felt in the capital city, Manila, more than 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) away, where workers and residents evacuated from buildings and gathered on the street.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said citizens should brace for any aftershocks, but added it had not issued any tsunami warnings because it was detected inland. Abra is a landlocked region known for deep valleys and mountainous terrain.
In a statement, Rep. Ching Bernos, congresswoman for Abra province, said the quake “caused damages to many households and establishments,” and “was also felt in various parts of Luzon and activated preemptive measures in many places.”
Photos from Abra show buildings damaged by the quake and debris covering the ground. One building is seen with cracks along the walls, while another lies tilted on its side.
Bernos said her office is monitoring the situation and assessing the extent of the damage, and urged residents to stay alert “in light of the possibilities of aftershocks.”
Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. ordered an immediate dispatch of rescue and relief teams to Abra, and will visit the affected areas once he is “given the all-clear,” his press secretary said in news conference on Wednesday.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Ching Bernos’ position. She is a congresswoman for Abra province.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated when the earthquake took place. It was Wednesday in the Philippines.
Bank protesters in Henan province in China attacked by plainclothes groups
Over the weekend, the depositors tried again, this time with valid “green” codes. At daybreak on Sunday, according to videos of the incident shared on Chinese social media, hundreds of protesters unfurled banners alleging corruption on the steps of the local branch of the People’s Bank of China, including one in English that declared “No deposits. No human rights.”
“The Chinese dreams of 400,000 depositors in Henan have been shattered,” read another banner, referring to President Xi Jinping’s slogan promising a better life for those who work hard and remain loyal to the Chinese Communist Party. Many waved Chinese national flags.
They also accused the government of working with the “mafia” to violently suppress protests. It’s unclear exactly why the banks have frozen withdrawals, but police are currently investigating Henan New Fortune Group, a shareholder of four banks, on suspicion of illegal fundraising, according to local media reports.
It is common practice for police in China to be present at sensitive events without uniforms, instead often wearing prearranged insignia. During past legal proceedings for Chinese human rights lawyers, foreign journalists and diplomats who gather outside the courthouse have occasionally been shoved by unidentified individuals wearing identical yellow smiley face badges.
The unusually bold demonstrations were met by dozens of uniformed police officers as well as a team of heavyset men mostly wearing white tops who all arrived together. Videos of the incidents, shared widely on Chinese social media before censors stepped in, showed the blue-shirted officers standing by as the burly men in white shirts began attacking the crowd. Protesters were dragged down a flight of steps before being carried away. Some were loaded onto buses, often sporting bruises from the clashes.
“I’ve been in shock from yesterday until today,” one protester said in an interview, asking to remain anonymous out of fear of official repercussions for talking to foreign media. He repeatedly described the men as “unidentified” but added “I never thought it could happen that officials could use this kind of violent beating against unarmed and defenseless regular people.”
“If I hadn’t experienced it myself, I really wouldn’t believe it. When foreign media reported similar incidents in the past, I always thought it was slander,” he said.
In response to videos of the scene, Tsinghua University law professor Lao Dongyan called on microblog Weibo for those behind the beatings to be held criminally responsible.
Lao added that an “immune system” of media and the law should have prevented the depositors’ quest to retrieve their savings from descending into such brutal scenes. “This is a concrete display of there being a problem with the immune system: All normal pathways to seek relief are blocked. What’s scary is this might just be the start,” she said.
Lost savings are a relatively common cause of protests in China, despite pervasive efforts by the stability-obsessed Chinese Communist Party to prevent public unrest. In recent years, crackdowns on poorly regulated financial products and peer-to-peer lending have repeatedly drawn investors to the capital to pressure authorities to compensate for losses.
China’s rural banks are currently the focal point of a government campaign to rein in debt. These institutions make up about 29 percent of all the high-risk financial entities in the country as of mid-2021, according to the People’s Bank of China.
Facing increased competition from larger institutions, many small banks have in recent years attempted to attract depositors using higher interest rates and also signing up clients from across the country for online services. The regulations for the banks were not set up for internet finance, He Ping, a professor at Renmin University’s School of Finance, told Sanlian Lifeweek magazine.
Henan’s Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said on Sunday that it will accelerate the verification process for customers of the four village banks under investigation and will announce a resolution to the problem soon.
Yet depositors continue to look for ways to pressure the Henan government not to ignore the case, including commenting beneath the official Weibo account of the United States Embassy to China. “Quickly report on Zhengzhou. Save us,” one user wrote Sunday.
Vic Chiang in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.
China rail crash: One dead, 8 injured after high-speed train derails in Guizhou province
The train derailed at 10:30am local time after hitting debris from a landslide that was on the track while it was approaching Rongjiang county, Guizhou province, CCTV said.
The train conductor died in hospital, CCTV said. One crew member and seven passengers were injured.
The remaining 136 passengers were safely evacuated, and the incident is under investigation, CCTV said.
China’s high-speed rail network includes 37,900 kilometers (about 23,500 miles) of lines that crisscross the country to link all of its major mega-city clusters. All have been completed since 2008.
No major incidents have been reported on the network since 2011, when 40 people were killed and nearly 200 others injured after a high-speed train was struck from behind by another train near Wenzhou, Zhejiang province.
Kazakhstan declares state of emergency in protest-hit city, province
ALMATY, Jan 5 (Reuters) – Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has declared a two-week state of emergency in the Central Asian nation’s biggest city Almaty and in the western Mangistau province where protests turned violent, his office said early on Wednesday.
The move includes an 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew, movement restrictions, and a ban on mass gatherings, according to documents published on the president’s website.
“Calls to attack government and military offices are absolutely illegal,” Tokayev said in a video address a few hours earlier. “The government will not fall, but we want mutual trust and dialogue rather than conflict.”
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As he spoke, police in Almaty used tear gas and stun grenades to stop hundreds of protesters from storming the mayor’s office, a Reuters correspondent reported from the scene.
The oil-rich country’s government announced late on Tuesday it was restoring some price caps on liquefied petroleum gas, after the rare protests reached Almaty following a sharp rise in the price of the fuel at the start of the year.
Many Kazakhs have converted their cars to run on LPG, which is far cheaper than gasoline as a vehicle fuel in Kazakhstan because of price caps. But the government argued that the low price was unsustainable and lifted the caps on Jan. 1.
PRICE SPIKE
After the price of the fuel spiked, rallies involving thousands of people erupted on Jan. 2 in the town of Zhanaozen, an oil hub and site of deadly clashes between protesters and police a decade ago.
Demonstrations spread to other parts of surrounding Mangistau province and western Kazakhstan, including provincial centre Aktau and a worker camp used by sub-contractors of Kazakhstan’s biggest oil producer, Tengizchevroil. The Chevron-led (CVX.N) venture said output had not been affected.
In Almaty, police appeared to have taken control of the main square shortly after deploying flashbang grenades, according to online video streams from the area. But explosions were heard for hours on nearby streets and in other parts of the city.
Videos published online showed torched police cars in the city, as well as armoured vehicles moving through one of its main thoroughfares.
On Tuesday evening, the government announced it was restoring the price cap of 50 tenge (11 cents) per litre, or less than half the market price, in Mangistau province.
Public protests are illegal in the country of 19 million unless their organisers file a notice in advance.
Tokayev, the hand-picked successor of Soviet-era Communist boss Nursultan Nazarbayev who stepped down in 2019, faces no political opposition in parliament.
The president said on Twitter on Tuesday that he would hold a government meeting the following day to discuss the protesters’ demands. He urged protesters to behave responsibly.
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Reporting by Pavel Mikheyev, Mariya Gordeyeva and Olzhas Auyezov; dditional reporting by Tamara Vaal in Nur-Sultan; Editing by Timothy Heritage, Peter Graff, Alex Richardson and Marguerita Choy
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Highway snaps in half, Vancouver cut off as province grapples with floods
British Columbia is grappling with the aftermath of intense rainfall and floods, which washed away parts of major highways and forced people to evacuate from affected locations in the southern part of the province.
Highway 1, 3, 7 and 5 in Coquihalla suffered extensive damage from river surges. Most of the highways remain closed, cutting off the Lower Mainland area completely.
The Coquihalla Highway, which appears to have snapped in two, is one of B.C.’s most important highways since it connects the city of Vancouver to the province Interior.
Reopening of the Coquihalla Highway could take months, Global News has reported.
“In some cases, it can be hours, or a day or two to remove debris,” Public Safety Minister and Deputy B.C. Premier Mike Farnworth said Tuesday morning.
“But in some cases, like the Coquihalla, it could be several weeks or months. We won’t know that until the experts do the work that needs to be done and they’re doing it right now.”
The Trans Canada Highway, known as Malahat or Highway 1, also remains closed due to severe impact. A section of the highway cut off and fell into the water near Tank Hill.
Highway 1 connects major Interior cities to one another and closures mean most of them have lost road access to neighbouring cities.
On top of this, all rail access to the Port of Vancouver, Canada’s largest port has been cut off.
“All rail service coming to and from the Port of Vancouver is halted because of flooding in the British Columbia interior,” port spokesperson Matti Polychronis said.
Vancouver’s port moves C$550 million ($440 million) worth of cargo each day, so the economic impact of the rail halt could be substantial, Reuters reported.
Officials rescued 275 people who were stranded in between various mudslides by using helicopters since most of the roads were closed.
Abbotsford and Chilliwack, B.C. authorities have expanded evacuation orders and are asking residents to leave immediately.
“This is changing so quickly that you might think you’re OK one minute and literally half an hour later you’ll see the change in the water levels,” said Abbotsford Police Chief Mike Serr.
But due to the highway closures and limited hotel availability, officials have asked evacuees to stay with family and friends, according to CBC News.
Officials are also rescuing those stranded in remote homes in the province using boats since there’s no road access.
Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said conditions remain in flux throughout the province.
“I would like to thank everyone who is affected for your patience, strength and for doing everything you can to stay safe,” he said.
Austria province to place millions of unvaccinated people in Covid lockdown | Austria
Austria is set to place millions of people not fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in lockdown in a matter of days as infections soar to record highs and intensive care units face an increasing strain.
The country’s worst-affected province of Upper Austria plans to introduce a lockdown for the unvaccinated from Monday next week following recommendations from medical experts.
Europe is once again “at the epicentre” of the pandemic with Covid cases at or surpassing record levels due to uneven vaccine coverage and a relaxation of preventive measures, the World Health Organization said last week, adding that 500,000 more deaths are forecast in the region by February.
Coronavirus deaths rose by 10% across the continent over the past week, making it the only world region where both Covid-19 cases and deaths are steadily increasing, according to a WHO report.
Austrian regional governor Thomas Stelzer described the situation as “dramatic” and said a lockdown would be introduced “provided there is a legal green light from the federal government or the federal government creates the legal basis”, the Austria Press Agency reports.
The province has the lowest vaccination rate and the highest infection rate of Austria’s nine provinces, according to government data.
Austria has the lowest vaccination rate of any western European country apart from Liechtenstein, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Those who are not vaccinated will have restrictions placed on their daily movements, including bans from restaurants, hotels, hairdressing salons and large public events.
The region will be the first to move into level five of Austria’s five-stage incremental government plan agreed in September that stipulates once 30% of intensive-care beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients, people not vaccinated against the coronavirus will be placed under lockdown. The current level is 20% and rising fast.
“According to the incremental plan we actually have just days until we have to introduce the lockdown for unvaccinated people,” chancellor Alexander Schallenberg told a news conference on Thursday, adding that Austria’s vaccination rate was “shamefully low”.
Around 65% of Austria’s population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, national statistics show. Upper Austria records just under 60% of the total population vaccinated.
Many Austrians are sceptical about vaccinations, a view encouraged by the far-right Freedom party, the third-biggest in parliament.
Schallenberg said during a visit to Bregenz in western Austria on Thursday: “I don’t see why two-thirds should lose their freedom because one-third is dithering.
“For me, it is clear that there should be no lockdown for the vaccinated out of solidarity for the unvaccinated.
“A lockdown for the unvaccinated means one cannot leave one’s home unless one is going to work, shopping [for essentials], stretching one’s legs – namely, exactly what we all had to suffer through in 2020,” Schallenberg added, referring to three national lockdowns last year.
The surge of Covid cases in Austria comes at a time when eastern European states, with the continent’s lowest vaccination rates, are experiencing some of the world’s highest daily death tolls per capita.
The number of new coronavirus infections in Austria has risen again to a record high, with 11,975 cases recorded within 24 hours, according to authorities.
The seven-day incidence per 100,000 inhabitants climbed to 751, three times the figure in neighbouring Germany.
With reporting from Reuters and Associated Press