3 dead, 5 missing in C China mudslide

A mudslide in central China’s Hunan Province Saturday afternoon killed three people, leaving another 19 injured and five missing, according to local governnment.

The mudslide happened at about 4 p.m. in Zuta Village of Ningxiang County after heavy rain for a long time since Friday. Search and rescue were underway overnight.

China’s summer railway transport peak period begins

China’s summer transport peak period began Saturday, with a record-high number of passenger trips expected to be made by train this year.

The period runs from July 1 to August 31, when students on summer vacation have time to travel or return home.

A total of 598 million passenger trips are expected to be made by train during the 62-day period, rising by 49.7 million year on year, according to China Railway Corporation.

Railway authorities have put a new transport route plan into operation, which adds more trains at transport hubs and elevates average passenger capacity.

Under the new route plan, Beijing and the Yangtze River Delta cities Shanghai and Hangzhou, as well as Xuzhou, will open high-speed trains to the northwestern city of Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province during the summer peak period.

The Yangtze River Delta railway network is estimated to have 116 million passenger trips during the period, an increase of 9.2 percent from the same period last year.

Beijing will increase 32 pairs of trains to serve students and tourists during the travel peak, according to the Beijing Railway Bureau.

“Today is the first day of the summer transport period. We estimate the Beijing Railway Station will handle 210,000 outbound passenger trips on Saturday,” said Wang Fan, an official in charge of passenger transport at the station.

Passengers can take bullet trains for the first time from Beijing to Xiongan New Area in neighboring Hebei Province next week, according to the China Railway Corporation.

High-speed trains become a popular choice for tourists.

“My children have begun their summer holidays. We will make a visit to Nanjing,” said a woman surnamed Lu at the south railway station in Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province. It was the first time for Lu to board a high-speed train.

In the southwestern Yunnan Province, high-speed trains are applied for this year’s summer transport for the first time. In December, Yunnan opened high-speed trains bound for the eastern metropolis Shanghai and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region respectively.

Passengers who take high-speed trains to Yunnan will increase a lot this summer, according to the Kunming Railway Station.

China to launch 2nd heavy-lift carrier rocket

China is scheduled to launch the Long March-5 Y2, the country’s second heavy-lift carrier rocket, from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China’s Hainan Province Sunday, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence said Saturday.

Propellant for the rocket, which will send the Shijian-18 communication satellite into orbit, began to be pumped in on Saturday afternoon, it said.

After arriving at the launch base in early May, the rocket has been assembled and tested there.

The launch will be the last drill for the Long March-5 series before it carries the Chang’e-5 lunar probe into space in the latter half of this year, according to the administration.

Media are allowed to live broadcast the launch, the administration said.

The Long March-5 made its maiden flight in November 2016 in Wenchang. It can carry a payload of 25 tonnes into low Earth orbit and 14 tonnes in geostationary orbit, over two times the capacity of current carrier rockets.

China has scheduled eight launches of Long March-5 in the coming years for the nation’s lunar probe, manned space station and Mars probe missions.