Five people were killed and three others were injured after a blast set a factory warehouse in east China’s Anhui province on fire on Sunday evening.

The blast was heard at about 5:20 p.m. Sunday in the Wanhua oil company in the Anqing city, according to the city’s publicity authorities. The fire was put out three hours later. Rescuers managed to save three people, leaving five others trapped at the scene.

The five people were found on the early morning of Monday and all confirmed dead. Among the three rescued, two are receiving treatment in hospital while the third, with minor injury, was discharged.

Monitor close to the factory didn’t find serious air pollution after the accident, while measures have been taken to handle the water pollution resulted by the blast.

Cause of the blast is being investigated.

The central leadership has named new Party chiefs in four provinces in the latest reshuffle of provincial leadership ahead of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China later this year.

The changes of the top officials in Heilongjiang, Hainan, Gansu and Shandong provinces, decided by the CPC Central Committee, were announced on Saturday.

Zhang Qingwei, 55, former governor of Hebei province, was appointed Party chief of Heilongjiang. Zhang was formerly an aerospace engineer.

Liu Cigui, 61, was named Party chief of Hainan. Liu, the former head of the State Oceanic Administration, has been governor of Hainan since February 2015.

Lin Duo, 61, former governor of Gansu, was appointed Party chief of the province. He was the former Party chief of Beijing’s Xicheng district from October 2006 to July 2010 and later worked in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces.

Liu Jiayi, who holds a doctorate in economics, was named Party chief of Shandong province. The 60-year-old has been head of the National Audit Office since March 2008.

The former Party chiefs of these four provinces－Wang Xiankui, Heilongjiang; Luo Baoming, Hainan; Wang Sanyun, Gansu; and Jiang Yikang, Shandong－have reached or are nearing 65, the standard retirement age for ministerial-level officials.

Also on Saturday, Xu Qin, 55, former Party chief and mayor of the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, was appointed deputy Party chief of Hebei. Wang Weizhong, former Party chief of Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi, was named Shenzhen’s Party chief on Sunday. A new Shenzhen mayor is yet to be announced.

Shen Xiaoming, former deputy minster of education, was named deputy Party chief of Hainan.

Xu and Shen are widely expected to be nominated governors of Hebei and Hainan. Government leaders must be approved by local provicial legislatures.

Xu, who holds a doctor’s degree in business administration from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, worked from 2003 to 2010 at the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planner.

He became mayor of Shenzhen in June 2010 and Party chief of the city in December 2016.

Xu’s appointment as a senior official in Hebei is believed to be beneficial to the development of the Xiongan New Area－whose creation in Heibei has national significance－as Xu has rich experience at Shenzhen, the country’s first special economic zone.

Shen, 54, formerly a pediatrician, worked in Shanghai for 28 years before he joined the Ministry of Education in 2016.

A total of 18 live streaming apps have been closed for disseminating illegal content, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced Sunday.

Some app operators were punished for the lack of a mechanism to censor content, and some anchors used the platforms to spread illegal content, dressed in military or police uniforms or were scantily dressed and acted flirtatiously, according to CAC.

Some anchors publicized their WeChat or QQ accounts during live streaming to induce fans to engage in prostitution.

“The online behavior of the anchors violated relevant Internet information service or live streaming laws and regulations, offended socialist core values, and brought negative impact to the healthy growth of the young and teenagers,” CAC said.

The administration vowed to step up inspection and law enforcement.

A file photo of a library [Photo: Baidu]

“Book Borrower,” an online library platform, has become popular with about 2,000 books being borrowed every month only one year after it was officially opened, reported Beijing Youth Daily on Sunday.

Only service fees paid, deposits to be returned

Users can choose the books they like on “Book Borrower” after paying a service fee and a deposit. Deposit will be returned to users after they return the books. Service fees include postage and packaging fees. Users are responsible for sending the books to stipulated places after they are finished reading.

The platform was developed by Chen Dongzan in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, in late 2015. In March 2016, the platform went online on Wechat. On the first day of its operation, Chen gave away bookmarks with QR codes of the shared library outside bookstores and libraries in Harbin, and got his first customer that evening.

After a month, the platform had 38 users, most of whom were locals in Harbin. Currently, the users are mostly office employees and university students with female readers accounting for 64%.

No reading period limit to make it convenient for users

From Chen Dongzan’s perspective, “Book Borrower” is a platform that is in between buying books and borrowing books from public libraries.

“The cost of buying books is relatively high and placing them at home takes up much space, while borrowing books from public libraries is not time efficient,” said Chen.

Chen says avoiding the shortcomings of buying books and borrowing books from public libraries has become the goal the online library is striving for.

Not proper time to talk about making profits

“Free of charge is why many previous book borrowing websites failed,” said Chen Dongzan.

Different from previous platforms, all the funds related to book borrowing on “Book Borrower” are offered by users. Chen said that there is little pressure for capital for the time being. However, it’s still too early to talk about making profits.

Chen says that the key to a lasting operation is to keep books in a mobile situation where no books will be on bookshelves for a long time.

Chen says he’s grateful that many longtime users were borrowing seven to eight books at a time by the end of 2016, which is a much higher number than before. Users who borrow twenty books at a time are also on the increase.

Chen said the platform is planning to set up storage in user intensive areas to make delivery quicker and cheaper in the future. “To make every family have a bookshelf with 300 books” is the vision and ultimate goal for “Book Borrower.”

Passengers crowd the Nanchang Railway Station in Nanchang city, Jiangxi province, on Saturday, April 1, 2017. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

China will see a surge of rail travelers during the Tomb-sweeping Day holiday starting Sunday.

China Railway, the national railway operator, expects the number of trips in the country to hit 45.2 million over the four-day travel rush, a 9.5 percent increase year on year.

The travel peak is expected on Sunday when train trips could reach 12.8 million, up 10.1 percent year on year.

The company said it would add more trains to meet demand.

Tomb-sweeping Day, also known as Qingming Festival, is the most important occasion for Chinese to honor their ancestors.