Eighteen people have died and another 18 remain missing after floods in China’s northeastern city of Jilin, local authorities said Monday.

Heavy rain in the central and eastern parts of Jilin Province on Thursday and Friday left much of the province inundated.

The city of Jilin was severely flooded and more than 110,000 people had to be relocated, according to the city flood control and drought relief office.

A 32,360-strong search and rescue team has been deployed in the city to remove the sludge and debris, repair bridges, and reconnect households to telecommunications and electricity networks.

Minister of Justice Zhang Jun said Sunday that China will build a unified online platform to offer “one-stop” legal services and legal aid.

Zhang made the announcement at a symposium in Harbin in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, which was attended by provincial heads of justice departments across the country.

Zhang called for the use of modern technology such as the “Internet plus” and WeChat app in making the platform to boost its accessibility.

The platform will provide legal consultations, dispute settlement, legal aid to people in need, as well as access to more complicated legal services, according to Zhang.

For the consultation services, qualified lawyers, notaries and judicial appraisers will answer questions on behalf of organizations, said Zhang.

China began efforts to set up a legal aid system in 1994.

More than 5 million legal aid cases have been handled and over 28 million people have received services since 2013.

A total of 49 tourists who had been stranded on Nanpeng Island in the South China Sea were picked up and moved to safety on Sunday morning, authorities said.

The tourists belonged to four camping groups visiting the uninhabited Nanpeng Island, some 35 km east of Zhapo, Yangjiang City in south China’s Guangdong Province, according to the Ministry of Transport.

Due to typhoon Talas, this year’s fourth typhoon, the tourists could not return home by themselves.

All the tourists were transferred safely to a rescue ship and a rescue helicopter dispatched by the Guangzhou-headquartered Nanhai Rescue Bureau of the Ministry of Transport.

China’s national observatory on Sunday morning renewed a blue alert for typhoon Talas, which is expected to hit Hainan Province and Beibu Gulf.

At 10 a.m. Sunday, the eye of Talas was above the South China Sea some 60 km to the southwest of Sanya City, packing winds of up to 23 meters per second, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said in a statement.

The NMC forecast that Talas would move northwestward at a speed of about 20 km per hour toward Beibu Gulf and make landfall on the northeast coast of Vietnam on Monday morning.

From Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon, parts of the South China Sea, Beibu Gulf, Qiongzhou Strait, Hainan and coastal areas of Guangdong and Guangxi will experience strong winds, while storms with up to 140 mm of precipitation are expected to affect parts of Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan.

A knife-wielding man killed two people and injured nine others Sunday night in a supermarket in southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, local police said.

The 30-year old suspect, surnamed Jiang, attacked people with a kitchen knife in a Wal-Mart outlet in Bao’an District at around 9 p.m., Shenzhen police said.

The attacker has been detained and the injured have been sent to hospital.

Police are investigating the case.

Police in east China’s Jiangsu Province said they have arrested a suspect for alleged arson after a fire engulfed a house that claimed 22 lives Sunday morning.

The suspect, surnamed Jiang, was in police custody. Local police gave no further information on the suspect.

The fire broke out at around 4:29 a.m. in a two-story residential house in Yushan Town in Changshu City, leaving 22 people dead and another three injured. The three face no life-threatening injuries.

A total of 24 disaster-relief teams have been set up to offer legal and mental support for the families and relatives of the victims.

The fire was put out at 5:28 a.m. Further investigation into the cause of the accident is under way.