A helicopter that belonged to the PLA Army Aviation Corps crashed on Thursday evening during a night time training flight. The two pilots remain missing as of Friday 20:10, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense (MOD) confirmed late on Friday.

The MOD statement says that the accident happened around 19:20 on Thursday evening in the rural area of the Quangang District, Quanzhou City in southeast China’s coastal Fujian Province. The MOD did not specify the model of the helicopter nor which military unit it belonged to, adding that the cause of the crash is still being investigated.

The crash also resulted in four damaged village houses and three injured local people with non-life-threatening injuries.

Media have released the news of the helicopter crash in Quanzhou soon after the accident happened, but local authorities said the military authorities will announce the official account of the accident.

Rescuers have found no signs of life of the 10 people missing after a landslide in central China’s Hubei Province on Friday night, indicating the death toll is very likely to stay at 12.

Two people have been confirmed dead.

The Mirage Hotel in Nanzhang County was devastated at around 7:30 p.m. Friday when around 3,000 cubic meters of debris slid down a slope behind the hotel, said the firefighters in charge of the rescue.

Hotel owner He Dahui is among the missing.

A total of 15 people were trapped, and rescuers pulled five survivors from the debris, two of whom died in hospital.

A three-storey building collapsed, trapping hotel workers and guests in the restaurant on the first floor.

Rescue work has been suspended due to risks of a secondary disaster. Rescuers will remove rocks that pose threat to the people on site before the work restarts.

A 3D printer is working on a vase. [File photo/Xinhua]

Chinese surgeons in a Central China hospital have succeeded in performing two complex pediatric heart surgeries using 3D printing technology.

The first patient was a 13-year-old girl suffering from hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, which causes her heart muscle to grow abnormally thick. The second was a 3-year-old boy with severe left ventricular outflow tract obstruction, said Yang Yifeng, a cardiologist with the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University in Hunan province.

Yang said the left ventricle is responsible for pumping oxygenated blood to tissues all over the body. Symptoms of left ventricular outflow tract obstruction include shortness of breath, sensation of rapid, fluttering heartbeats during exercise, chest pain, and fainting.

In either of the two cases, because of the complexity involved, doctors decided to use a 3D printer to produce a 1:1 replica of the patient’s heart. The model allows doctors to carefully study the disease and plan their surgery, Yang said.

It is the first time 3D printing technology is used in Hunan for pediatric cardiovascular surgery. It proves quite successful and the two patients are recovering well, Yang added.

3D printing is being embraced by doctors in China’s major hospitals for surgeries and training, as the technology greatly improves surgery precision and helps doctors to discuss the ailment with their colleagues and sometimes their patients.