PARA-GAMES: The Eighth Chinese National Games for the Disabled opens in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, on October 11, with more than 5,000 athletes participating (XU YU)

Disaster Loss

Natural disasters have left 1,074 people dead or missing in China over the past nine months, according to a joint statement issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA) and the National Disaster Reduction Commission (NDRC).

Between January and September, natural disasters affected 480 million people nationwide, resulting in the evacuation or relocation of 9.12 million people, the statement said.

The disasters also incurred a total of 302.8 billion yuan ($47.7 billion) in direct economic losses.

To deal with the disasters, the MOCA and the NDRC initiated level IV emergency response plans 29 times and level III plans twice over the course of the year, the statement said.

Mekong Tragedy

Shipping on the Mekong River, known in China as the Lancang River, has been suspended after two cargo ships were attacked on October 5 in the "Golden Triangle," where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet, the maritime affairs department of southwest China's Yunnan Province said on October 10.

Thai authorities have confirmed that all 13 Chinese crewmen on the two hijacked ships were killed and identified the killers as a drug trafficking ring operating on the Mekong River.

According to the Yunnan Provincial Government, 116 of the 130 ships engaged in international shipping on the Mekong River are operated by Chinese companies.

Drug Rehabilitation

Judicial authorities have set up more than 220 rehabilitation centers across China and treated more than 230,000 drug users in the centers since their establishment, Minister of Justice Wu Aiying said.

The increased mobility of the population and the Internet have made drugs produced overseas more accessible to Chinese addicts, and judicial personnel have dealt with increased risks by helping addicts break their habit, the minister said.

The number of registered Chinese drug users neared 1.44 million as of June this year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security.

Under China's anti-drug regulations, drug addicts are transferred to judicial authorities' rehabilitation centers after undergoing three to six months of compulsive rehabilitation by the police.

Affordable Housing

China had started building 9.86 million units of affordable housing by the end of September, or 98 percent of the total amount planned for this year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said.

The Chinese Government pledged to start construction on a further 10 million units of affordable housing this year, part of its five-year plan to build 36 million units by 2015 in an effort to give more low-income households access to housing.

Offshore Inspection

The Chinese Government launched a nationwide campaign starting on October 15 to inspect the country's offshore petroleum drilling and exploration businesses to prevent future oil spills.

For three weeks, six inspection teams will check oil drilling and exploration platforms, pipelines, floating production storage and offloading facilities, onshore terminals, docks and transport vessels in the Bohai Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea.

Oil that leaked from an oil drilling platform operated by Houston-based ConocoPhillips' China branch caused the country's worst offshore pollution in June this year, contaminating more than 5,500 square km of water in the Bohai Bay.