Eight people were killed and 17 remain missing after a rain-triggered landslide hit a village in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, local authorities said Tuesday.

The landslide hit Gengdi village in Qiaowo township of Puge county at around 6 a.m. Tuesday. It also injured five people, according to the information office of the prefecture government.

Rescue work is underway.

The management committee of Xiongan New Area has announced that a special company has been established to fund construction of the area.

With registered capital of 10 billion yuan (about 1.47 billion U.S. dollars), China Xiongan Construction & Investment Group is a state-owned company.

The Hebei provincial government approved its founding in July.

The company will raise fund to build houses and apartments, develop the Baiyangdian water area, and to build transport links, energy infrastructure and public facilities in Xiongan.

China announced plans in April to establish the Xiongan New Area, a new economic zone about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing. It covers Hebei’s Xiongxian, Rongcheng and Anxin counties.

Seven people have died and two others remain missing after a flood in northwest China’s Gansu Province, local authorities said Tuesday.

Rainstorms hit three townships in Wenxian county in Longnan city from Sunday evening to Monday morning, resulting in geological disasters including landslides.

Nearly 1,000 residents have been relocated to safety. The rain also left roads blocked, houses collapsed or damaged, and power supply and communication interrupted.

The local government has dispatched thousands of people to participate in rescue and relief work.

Chinese women are more likely to travel alone than men, according to a recent report by China’s biggest online travel agency, with female travelers urged to pay close attention to security on trips.

The report by ctrip.com said 58 percent of customers in the agency’s self-guided and group tours are women. In the first six months of this year, 14 percent of women chose to travel alone, compared to 10 percent of men, the report said.

Women’s top destinations included Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chengdu.

“It means Chinese women are more economically independent. On the other hand, women have accumulated more travel experience,” said an expert with Ctrip. “Many female travelers in their 20s can speak English and can manage by themselves during trips.”

But women travelers may face higher security risks, especially in overseas trips, the report added. Ctrip launched four new services: Global travel SOS, local guides, travel companions and insurance to help reduce travel risks.

Ctrip’s global travel SOS system has dealt with about 570 cases since it was launched at the beginning of this year. Sixty-five of those seeking help were women and 82 percent were overseas. Over 90 percent of cases were solved successfully, the agency said.

Ctrip’s local guide app covers over 80 countries and 800 cities with 8,000 local guides that provide Chinese language services.

“I am lost. How can I get a ride?” was the most frequently asked question on Ctrip’s system. Other common questions included those about scenic spots and food.

Ctrip also reminded travelers to remember its 12308 hotline and turn to local embassies if they encounter danger on overseas trips. It also suggest travelers avoid going to unsafe places alone such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Concern has risen in Hong Kong over the outbreak of seasonal influenza, but officials said that reports comparing it to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003 are misleading.

In Hong Kong, 324 summer flu-related deaths were recorded from May 5 to Aug 6, according to the Centre for Health Protection under the special administrative region’s Department of Health.

The number of deaths during winter flu season reached 442 in 2015 and 171 in 2016, according to CHP records.

Some news reports last weekend said that the summer flu in Hong Kong had killed more people than the SARS epidemic did in 2003.

But Guan Yi, director of State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Center of Influenza Research at the University of Hong Kong, said the two numbers are not comparable, and added that such coverage “exaggerated the situation” and would create unnecessary public fear.

Guan said the deaths caused by summer flu often involve senior citizens, a high-risk demographic, many of whom have chronic diseases and a weak immune system. Summer flu can trigger other complications that can cause death, he added.

During the SARS epidemic, however, the virus was much more potent and killed people of all ages, Guan noted.

In 2003, SARS claimed 299 lives from March 10 to June 23 in Hong Kong, killing 17 percent of those who got sick, official data show.

The CHP estimated that the death rate for summer flu this year would be less than 2.1 percent, given that most patients would recover in two to seven days. The death rate in past flu seasons has ranged from 1.9 percent to 3.3 percent, according to the CHP.

The summer flu season is expected to continue for the next few weeks, CHP officials said.

In Shenzhen, meanwhile, the disease control and prevention department issued its highest-level alert for the past three weeks for seasonal flu, and it warned that the situation bears watching this week since the number of infections is still expected to increase at a high rate.

However, Song Tie, deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the situation this year is similar to that of previous years, except that the peak has come later.

Seasonal influenza usually breaks out between May and July in southern Guangdong province, but the peak may come earlier or later depending on the particular strain of the virus, said Kong Dongfeng, associate senior physician of the communicable disease control and prevention division of Shenzhen Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The most prevalent influenza virus this year is the H3N2 virus, accounting for 75 percent of the cases in Guangdong, with children, pregnant women, the elderly and those with chronic diseases being the most vulnerable groups, officials said. No statistics on deaths were released.

Last month, 1,468 influenza cases were detected at Shenzhen ports of entry, compared with 848 cases in June, both representing significant growth compared with a year earlier, according to the Shenzhen Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.

Influenza-like illnesses represented 4.64 percent of all the outpatient cases in the city from July 26 to Aug 1, according to official statistics. The figure for the previous week was 4.98 percent.

Guan, from Hong Kong, suggested that people take Tamiflu, an antiviral medication used to treat and prevent influenza A and influenza B, once they experience such symptoms as runny nose, coughing, fever and other flu symptoms.