One of the towns worst hit in last month’s devastating China earthquake has been sealed off to prevent diseases from spreading, after having been opened just briefly, state media said yesterday.
More than 600 police officers have been posted around southwest China’s Beichuan town, which was nearly flattened in the May 12 quake, to prevent anyone from entering, Xinhua news agency reported.
RISK OF DISEASES
Tan Jiamin, Beichuan County’s head of police, said the empty city would remain closed down for “a long time” because the rising temperatures increased the risk of epidemic, Xinhua said.
Beichuan, a town of about 12,000 that reportedly lost half its residents in the disaster, was reopened only recently to allow people to go back to find vital possessions left behind after the quake.
CHAOTIC SCENES
The chaotic scenes that followed once the town was reopened forced authorities to close it down soon after its reopening.
“Some local residents were digging for their family members with their bare hands, which can easily cause infection,” Tan told Xinhua.
CONTAMINATION
Contaminated carcasses could trigger diseases like avian influenza, encephalitis B and rabies, while the earthquake may also heighten the risk of infection of anthrax or tetanus, earlier reports said.
The death toll from the earthquake, China’s most lethal in a generation, stood at 69,186 as of Friday, while 18,457 were counted as missing, Xinhua said.
WAKE-UP CALL: Firms in the private sector were not taking basic precautions, despite the cyberthreats from China and Russia, a US cybersecurity official said A ninth US telecom firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and telephone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said on Friday. Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden this month said that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. US Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger on Friday told reporters that a ninth victim
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
MISSING: Prosecutors urged the company to move workers out of poor living conditions to hotels, but residents said many workers had already left the town Brazil has stopped issuing temporary work visas for BYD, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, in the wake of accusations that some workers at a site owned by the Chinese electric vehicle producer had been victims of human trafficking. The announcement came days after labor authorities said they found 163 Chinese workers who had been brought to Brazil irregularly in “slavery-like” conditions at the BYD factory construction site in the northeastern state of Bahia. The workers were employed by contractor Jinjiang Group, which has denied any wrongdoing. Later, the authorities also said the workers were victims of human trafficking,
RSS