The people of Macao have been showing their gratitude to People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers who have been operating in the Special Administrative Region to help with disaster relief.

Around 1,000 Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldiers join the relief efforts after Macao was hit by Typhoon Hato. [Photo: js7tv.cn]

One online post shows the Chinese mainland soldiers rescuing four people trapped in a car by rising floodwaters received hundreds of likes on social media shortly after it was uploaded, reports the South China Morning Post.

A photo of the dramatic rescue was posted by a coach driver called Ieong Fong-tang, who wrote that the PLA soldiers arrived 25 minutes ahead of the Macao police, and helped the trapped people get out of the car, adding that he couldn’t imagine what would have happened without their help.

About 1,000 members from the PLA Garrison in Macao were mobilized on Friday at the request of the Macao Special Administrative Region government, after the city was ravaged by Typhoon Hato, which left ten people dead and over 200 others injured.

They’ve been helping principally with recovery efforts, clearing debris and spraying disinfectant. It’s the first time since the handover in 1999 that PLA soldiers from Macao operated on the streets of the city.

Local residents have welcomed their presence, and praised them for their help. Many applauded and cheered when PLA trucks were spotted in the city. Some said the appearance of the PLA troops made them feel safe.

Meanwhile, Pakhar, the 14th typhoon this year, hit Macao during Sunday.

The Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau issued a Signal No. 8 warning, one of the highest levels, at 6:00 local time.

The typhoon brought rain and gales to Macao, along with Guangdong, Fujian, Hainan provinces.

“A region has to build roads if it wants to build wealth” the saying goes, and they are certainly sticking to it in the Tibet Autonomous Region, an area of more than 1.2 million square kilometers.

“It was a headache to travel to the Ali district in the past as there were only cobblestone and mud roads. It might take one week from Lhasa to Ali by truck, and you had to take water and food with you as there were no restaurants along the way,” said Tsering, a driver in Lhasa.

Today, it takes him under four days as there are several blacktop highways between both places.

Tibet has seen its economy invigorated by improved transport conditions.

The total length of highways in Tibet grew from 65,198 kilometers in 2012 to over 82,000 kilometers today, extending by over 4,200 kilometers a year. High-grade highways, similar to expressways, saw their length increase six-fold from 2012 to 2016, said Chen Chao, deputy head of the region’s transport bureau.

In 2013, the Motuo Highway opened to traffic, linking the outside world with the remote region of Motuo in southeastern Tibet. It was the last Chinese county without access to highways.

The rapid development of highways is the result of investment which grew from 10.101 billion yuan (US$1.52 billion) in 2012 to over 40 billion yuan in 2016, increasing by 41.3 percent a year.

Thanks to investment in infrastructure and the effects of improved transport, Tibet posted impressive economic growth in the past five years, recording an annual average GDP growth of 11 percent. The region’s economy grew 10.8 percent year on year in the first half of 2017, outperforming every other provincial region.

“Once transport barriers are removed, there will be more commercial activities like logistics and tourism, thus improving local people’s livelihoods,” Chen said.

And building highways can help protect the environment, Chen said. When there were no highways, drivers would cross a region randomly, destroying the vegetation. Grass and plants are now spared as drivers run on a fixed route.

By 2020, Tibet will have 110,000 kilometers of highways, with all counties having access to blacktop highways and all towns connected by cement roads.

A local tech company has been fined 15,000 yuan (US$2,260) and suspended for two months for releasing emoticon of “comfort women,” Shanghai police said yesterday.

Police said “frivolous” captions of photographs of comfort women were shown in a recent documentary film about their lives in World War II appeared on the Internet on August 18. The captions came under fire from both online users and the media.

“Comfort women” were women and girls forced into sex slavery by Japanese soldiers during World War II.

Police said the company, called Siyanhui, was punished according to Internet regulations for ignoring social morality in pursuit of business profit.

Responsible people from the company made to write letters of apology.

In its letter of apology published on its website, the firm put the blame on “a young editor” on the team, who was “ignorant of knowledge on history and politics” and created five emoticons from the trailer of the documentary “Twenty-two” and added words to three of them.

A thirteen year old girl has been accepted by a top Chinese university to study medicine, reports People’s Daily.

13-year-old Chen Shuyin, from Guangdong province, has been accepted by Zhejiang University School of Medicine. [Photo: sohu.com]

Chen Shuyin, who graduated from a high school this summer in the city of Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, is now a freshman at Zhejiang University School of Medicine.

Chen has excelled at every stage of her educational career. At the age of seven, she attended a middle school, after only just one year’s study in primary school.

She was always within the top 30 students while she was there.

When Chen turned 9, she was admitted to a local high school after gaining the 13th highest score in the city.

She took the National College Exam at 12, achieving a score that was more than one hundred points higher than that needed to be accepted by a first-class university in China.

Chen’s father says his daughter is not different from most kids of her age, is quite quiet and likes to read in her spare time, and has good learning skills.

When asked about her life at the university, Chen Shuyin says she enjoys making friends, and she has no difficulty in living and communicating with her classmates, who may be several years older than she is.

She also says she would like to do research in the field of clinical medicine while studying at university.

Typhoon Pakhar put the lives of a cargo ship crew in danger off Hong Kong as it uprooted trees and caused flooding and blackouts on Sunday in Guangdong province coastal cities, which were still recovering from Typhoon Hato’s devastation.

Pedestrians brave Typhoon Pakhar’s strong winds and rain in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Sunday. [Photo/Xinhua]

Pakhar packed winds up to 119 kilometers per hour when it made landfall at 9 am in Taishan, Guangdong. Four days before, Hato, the strongest typhoon in China this year, landed less than 100 kilometers away, leaving 18 dead in the province and neighboring Macao.

The Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre received a distress call on Sunday morning from a cargo vessel sinking in the storm 64 nautical miles east of Hong Kong. The 11 crew members onboard the Hong Tai 176 were safely rescued by two aircraft of the SAR’s Flying Service.

Meanwhile, on Hong Kong’s Kowloon Peak, two hikers had been stranded since Saturday night. The city dispatched firefighters, fire vehicles and ambulances to save them, and they were escorted downhill at noon and taken to a hospital.

Pakhar damaged power supply stations and caused blackouts affecting thousands in Foshan and Shenzhen, Guangdong.

Some roads in Zhuhai, one of the cities worse hit by Hato, were soaked again by Pakhar’s rainfall on Sunday morning. Several bridges, part of the expressways and some roads were temporarily closed.

Three security guards at a residential community in Shenzhen were injured when the wind toppled a tree that hit parking fee collection booth, Guangdong TV reported.

The Zhongshan Maritime Administration rescued 28 people on three fishing and merchant ships near Modaomen Estuary.

Zhang Jiarui, who lives in an abandoned factory in Magang, Jiangmen, hunkered down indoors with his parents when Pakhar came ashore, uprooting trees and causing power outages.

“We knew the typhoon was coming, and we bought food and daily necessities in town. … With our precautions, we’ve been calmly handling it.”

Armed Police officers helped check fishing boat berths and seaside resort businesses in Jiangmen starting on Saturday in preparation for Pakhar. Before the typhoon hit, 14,348 people were evacuated.

Power and water companies and the police worked overnight on Saturday to restore service cut by Typhoon Hato and clear roads blocked by fallen trees in Zhuhai.

Businesses and schools closed in Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Zhongshan and Yangjiang on Sunday.

Some rail service and intercity coach service in Guangdong was suspended on Sunday, and some expressways were closed

China Southern Airlines canceled 55 flights on Sunday to or from Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Jieyang.

Hainan maritime authorities suspended roll-on/roll-off ferry service and cross-sea trains in and out of the province.

To help Macao restore power, largely affected by Hato, China Southern Power Grid Co delivered 50 generators on Sunday, and Guangdong police delivered 20 fire engines to serve as mobile water supply vehicles.

In Yunnan province, two more people have been found dead, raising the provincial death toll from Typhoon Hato to five. Six people went missing after houses collapsed in a flood caused by heavy rain on Friday in Yanjin county. Rescuers found two bodies in the debris on Saturday and Sunday.