Two officials have been placed under investigation following a fatal landslide at an open-pit coal mine in north China’s Shanxi Province.

The total number of fatalities rose to eight as four more bodies were recovered Thursday. The accident occurred at around 3 p.m. on Aug. 11 at Lyuxin coal mine in Heshun County, but the coal mine company denied the casualties until its head turned himself in to police Tuesday, confessing that about 10 people were buried in the accident.

At least one person remains missing, but the exact number of people buried is not yet known.

Zhang Ruiqing, the county coal administration head, and Yao Jiangbo, head of the county bureau of land and resources, are both being investigated for suspected “violation of laws and regulations.” Zhang has been removed from his post.

Lyuxin coal mine, under Shanxi Coal Transportation and Sales Group Co., Ltd., has an annual coal capacity of 2 million tonnes.

Downpours have killed 10 people in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, authorities said Friday.

Heavy rain has lashed 23 counties since last Saturday, and more than 190,000 people have suffered losses, according to the regional department of civil affairs.

So far, 11,100 people have been evacuated.

A total of 7,800 hectares of crops have been damaged, and 305 houses have collapsed, resulting in a direct economic loss of 574 million yuan (86 million U.S. dollars), according to the department.

The fire that broke out Thursday in a chemical plant in Dalian, northeast China’s Liaoning Province, was caused by leak in an oil pump, authorities said Friday.

The fire broke out at around 6:40 p.m. in a subsidiary of state-owned PetroChina Company Limited in the coastal city, according to the local publicity department. No casualties were reported.

Liu Yan, Dalian’s deputy mayor, said that the leak occurred in a pump in the company’s catalytic cracking unit that churns out 1.4 million tonnes of heavy oil annually.

Representatives from the company said that the accident showed vulnerabilities in safety management.

“We need to learn lessons from the fire and launch a safety inspection to rule out further risks,” Liu said.

Beijing has been ranked eighth in an international taxi price index issued recently by a British company for its cab fare – 2.3 yuan ($0.34) per kilometer.

The 2017 Taxi Price Index, issued by Carspring, an online seller of used cars, shows taxi fares in 80 tourist cities in around the world based on three metrics: The cost per kilometer, the cost of waiting time, and the fare from the airport to the city center.

For the cost per kilometer, Cairo took the top spot at $0.10, followed by Bangkok ($0.18), Moscow ($0.27), Mexico City ($0.28), Jakarta ($0.30), Bangalore ($0.30), Mumbai (0.32), Beijing ($0.34), Bucharest ($0.35) and Kuala Lumpur ($0.36).

The most expensive city for cab fare is Zurich, Switzerland, at $5.19 per kilometer.

For a typical 3 kilometer ride, Beijing is ranked the 15th cheapest with a fare of $3.08, and Cairo retains its top position as the cheapest city with $0.55. Zurich is the most expensive with $25.25.

A smart capsule hotel operated by a WeChat account recently opened at Cybernaut Makerspace in Chongqing’s Liangjiang New Area.

A look at a capsule room in an unmanned hotel in Chongqing. [Photo by Tan Yingzi/chinadaily.com.cn]

The hotel has four rooms shaped like a white space capsule and each room can accommodate one person.

The guests can register on the hotel’s WeChat account and can make reservations, check in and check out by themselves using their mobile phones. So there’s no hotel staff.

The hotel aims to provide a place for workers to rest, especially during the lunch break. It charges 5 yuan ($75 cents) per 30 minutes and 6 yuan during the lunch break.

The owner of the hotel plans to install about 200 rooms by the end of the year in Liangjiang New Area Internet Industry Park.

A capsule hotel, also known as a pod hotel, is a type of property first developed in Japan that features a large number of small “rooms” (capsules). The first capsule hotel in the world was the Capsule Inn Osaka in 1979.

In 2012, China opened its first capsule hotel in Xi’an, Shaanxi province.