Seven people died and another was critically injured in a series of car crashes in central China’s Henan Province, police with Xinyang City said Saturday.

The accident occurred early Saturday at an expressway section in Xixian County of Xinyang. More than 40 vehicles were involved in the crashes, which happened within a two-km-long area. Eight people were trapped in six separate vehicles, the police said.

Three fire engines and 17 fire fighters were sent to rescue the people. Seven died at the site and one person was gravely injured and sent to the hospital.

Fog and low visibility are suspected to be the cause of the accident. Further investigation is under way.

China announced Saturday it would establish the Xiongan New Area in Hebei Province, as part of measures to advance the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region.

This is another new area with national significance after the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and the Shanghai Pudong New Area, according to a circular issued by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council.

The move is a “major historic and strategic choice made by the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core,” said the circular.

The New Area, about 100 km southwest of downtown Beijing, will span three counties that sit at the center of the triangular area formed by Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei’s provincial capital Shijiazhuang.

The move will help phase out non-capital functions from Beijing, explore a new model of optimized development in densely-populated areas, and restructure the urban layout in the BTH region, according to the circular.

The New Area will cover around 100 square km initially and will be expanded to 200 square km in mid-term and about 2,000 square km in the long-term.

The French Embassy in China cited an isolated minor attack on a Frenchman in Shanghai on Friday to warn its citizens in China to be vigilant, considering the fact that a Chinese national was killed by a Paris policeman a few days ago.

The news section of the embassy’s website on Thursday carried a report that a French national was “violently assaulted” with a knife the previous day in Shanghai. The embassy then posted another news report on Friday that the attacker had been arrested by Chinese police and the Embassy and Consulate General of France in Shanghai were closely following developments in the investigation.

In both news releases, the embassy called on the French community to show the “utmost vigilance and [awareness of] security” in the “current context.”

However, it soon turned out that the attack was not that serious. According to Shanghai police, the unnamed Frenchman was attacked with a razor and suffered a superficial neck wound. The Frenchman then sought treatment at a hospital by himself. There was also a photo released by the police showing the man with bandaged neck talking to officers.

Shanghai police also identified the attacker as a 27-year-old local man surnamed Mao, who suffered mental problems. He is now in custody.

“It is understood that Shanghai police have arrested the suspect and the case is still under investigation,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said during a press briefing on Friday. “I suggest nobody should rush to make any assumptions.”

The French Embassy had been fearing members of the French community in China might suffer some retaliation from Chinese people due to the incident involving Liu Shaoyao, a 56-year-old Chinese man who was shot dead by a Paris policeman on March 26, triggering protest on the streets of the French capital, and in China, too.

Liu’s family is now refusing to say anything more to the press and the public until the case reaches the courts. Paris prosecutors and the police are still investigating the case to establish the full facts. Two versions are circulating, with the police insisting they were forced to shoot in self-defense,while Liu’s family insist he posed no danger to any policeman.

The Qianjiang Evening News, a local newspaper in Zhejiang Province from where Liu originated, reported the local government of Qingtian County, Zhejiang felt the family’s pain and was closely following the case.

Also, according to a friend of Liu, the Chinese man went to France to work two decades ago and the family was not rich. “The place where they resided in Paris is an average ghetto community of various races with bad security,” he said.

According to Nouvelles D’Europe, many Chinese and Asians told it they felt they suffered from clear racial discrimination from neighbors and police officers in the area. “Fraud and robberies against Chinese are so frequent in Paris, I feel no sense of safety,” said one Asian woman who insisted on remaining anonymous.

The newspaper also reported that, in April 2016, the police brutally raided the apartment of two Chinese female students residing in the 13th arrondissement without finding anything there.

An anonymous hand had written on the wall of their building “Chinese whores, first floor”; When they went to testify, a police officer even told them that, “many Chinese students are prostitutes.”

Last August, Zhang Chaolin, a 49-year-old couturier and father of two who lived in Aubervilliers, was fatally assaulted in the street, due to his origin, by three young people living in the community.

These problems had a negative impact on French-Chinese relations. For example, the number of Chinese tourists in France dropped by 27 percent in 2016 to 1.6 million, compared to 2.2 million in 2015, as travelers sought more secure countries to visit.

France has set a goal of attracting five million Chinese tourists by 2020, but persistent security concerns may prevent the target being achieved.

A memorial event for Liu Shaoyao was approved by Paris police to be held at The Place de la République in central Paris on the afternoon of April 2. Emmanuel Macron, youngest candidate in the race for the French presidency and a former economics minister, met with Liu’s family on Friday and promised to help them.

Nearly 170,000 people had registered as organ donors in China by the end of last year, an event to remember organ donors in China was told on Friday in Shanghai.

The ceremony was also meant to promote public understanding of organ donation.

In March 2010, the Red Cross Society of China and the former Ministry of Health started the organ donation system, encouraging citizens to voluntarily donate organs after their death as a way to extend another’s life.

Remarkable achievements have been made over the past seven years, and now the system has become a major channel for organ donation, Wang Ping, vice-president and secretary-general of the society, said at the event.

Officials said public understanding of organ donations and support has significantly improved over the years, and the number of people registering for organ donation is also on the rise. So far, about three in every 1 million people have registered.

A total of 4,080 organ donations were made in 2016, with 11,296 organs being donated, an increase of 47.5 percent over 2015.

Also last year, 104,538 people registered to become an organ donor, three times more than in 2015.

The event also noted that the development of the organ donation system is still in its initial stages, and varies in different areas. In the future, more policies will be made to support the system’s long-term development.

At the event, Huang Jiefu, chairman of the China National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee, was recognized for his special contribution to China’s organ donation work.

90-year-old woman survives 4 days with 6 duck eggs. [Photo/Video printscreen]

Before being found and rescued by local police, a 90-year-old woman in Chongqing survived in the forest for four days, equipped with only six duck eggs. The woman, surnamed Zhang, became disoriented after losing her way home.

Zhang lives in Nanbin, Chongqing municipality in southwestern China. She became lost while returning home from a fair held in a nearby county on March 20.

Her son, Ma Zewu, reported his mother missing on the evening of the second day of her absence, after finding no trace of the elderly Zhang. Upon receiving the alert, local police organized a rescue team, but failed to find Zhang immediately due to heavy rain.

On March 23, police used security camera footage to spot Zhang near a factory. Tracing her trail, they narrowed her possible location to a 2-kilometer stretch of road, between the factory and a bee farm. In the end, Zhang was found in a bush in the evening.

Though she was weak, her mind was still clear. She was later sent to the hospital.

According to Zhang, she lost her way after changing routes to avoid a vicious dog.

Despite spending three nights in the forest, she said the six duck eggs helped her to make it through. While Zhang is hardly the first person to survive in the wild when equipped with food and drink, it is something of a miracle for a 90-year-old to do so for four days, according to Zhang’s doctor.