Kunming facing garbage crisis
Reuters is reporting that Kunming is facing a garbage crunch, with the city's main west and east garbage dumps "fully saturated" and facing closure before the end of this year. It is estimated that Kunming produces 1.3 million tons of trash annually.

Kunming has a plan to bring three new garbage processing facilities similar to the new Wuhuan Incineration Plant online in the coming years. Using a chemical process, the plant is reportedly capable of producing electricity while processing garbage.

Schools, buses on heightened H1N1 alert
Classes at Kunming University of Science and Technology's Oxbridge campus have been temporarily canceled due to a recent outbreak of H1N1 virus (aka swine flu), in which 34 students have been confirmed to be carrying the virus and "around 200 or 300" students have been quarantined on campus. The school is home to 5,000 students.

Concerns of a large-scale H1N1 breakout have also led to Kunming's bus companies increasing hygiene precautions on the city's 3,200 buses. Buses now get a preliminary cleaning after the completion of each route in addition to daily disinfections.

Indian media: It's time to connect with Kunming
Indian newspaper The Times of India is calling on the Indian government to reconsider its decision to not rebuild the Stilwell Road, an old World War II supply route that once connected Kunming with Ledo in northeast India's Assam State via northern Myanmar. According to writer Saibal Dasgupta, India's concerns about China's growing regional influence is feeding into behavior that only amplifies India's increasingly weak regional position:


Marianas Islands courting Kunming tourists
The Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI), a group of Pacific islands administered by the United States, is hosting Kunming television media this week with the goal of luring increasingly wealthy Kunmingers. A local television crew producing travel shows for Kunming TV will film in Saipan and Tinian, according to a Saipan Tribune report.

Marianas Visitors Authority (MVA) officials have high hopes for the upcoming CNMI travel special, which is expected to be viewed in around one million Kunming households in early December.

"We welcome additional Chinese tourists; their contribution to the NMI economy is significant and necessary," said MVA managing director Perry Tenorio.

Kunming garbage dump image: Reuters

Woman falls from 28th floor, strikes pedestrian
Kunming police are investigating the death of a woman who fell 28 stories and struck an unlucky pedestrian who is in the hospital with head injuries.

Sunday at 11:08 am, witnesses said they heard a crash and then saw a body fall to a stairwell outside of building D3 of the Meijing Xincheng residential complex in the Yueyatang neighborhood. The woman who fell was killed instantly, witnesses told Kunming newspaper Dushi Shibao.

A woman surnamed Zhao, who was walking with her mother-in-law and son, happened to be walking below building D3 at the time that the woman fell from the 28th floor. A doctor at 533 Hospital said the woman was in stable condition but that she had suffered some head trauma and was unable to remember being struck by the falling woman.

Due to the fact that the fallen woman apparently crashed through a window before falling to her death, it is unclear whether her fall was suicide, accidental or if foul play was involved. Police have not released any information about the woman's identity or any other details related to the case.

H1N1 vaccines to be distributed throughout Yunnan
Yunnan will distribute 750,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine throughout the province in the coming days, according to Yunnan Provincial Health Bureau director Chen Juemin (陈觉民).

So far 414 cases of H1N1, commonly known as swine flu, have been confirmed in Yunnan, with 259 patients having already been discharged from hospitals and 155 patients still receiving treatment. Yunnan has yet to have any severe H1N1 cases or deaths due to the virus, according to an en.kunming.cn report.

Of the vaccine doses, 150,000 will be allotted for high exposure groups, particularly airport staff and police, with the remaining 600,000 doses distributed to Yunnan's cities and prefectures, the report said.

Kunming holiday tourist stats released
Municipal tourism officials announced on Saturday that during the eight-day National Day/Mid-Autumn Festival golden week holiday the city received 1.28 million visitors from elsewhere in China, an increase of more than six percent over the same time in 2008, according to a Dushi Shibao report.

It was estimated that of the holiday visitors, 1.04 million only stayed one night before moving on to other travel destinations in Yunnan such as Lijiang, Dali and Xishuangbanna. Total revenue from visiting tourists is estimated at 571 million yuan (US$83.6 million), an increase of 7.83 percent over the previous year.

Yunnan provincial health authorities announced yesterday that an American living in Kunming has been quarantined at home after flying on the same Northwest Airlines flight between Tokyo and Beijing as China's first confirmed H1N1 virus case, a 30-year-old man who flew on to Chengdu, where he is under quarantine.

The quarantined American citizen's name, gender and age have not been revealed, nor have any symptoms of H1N1 – commonly known as swine flu – been detected by the special team of epidemiologists that has been dispatched to the quarantined individual's Kunming residence.

The only information provided at this point is that the individual in question works for an NGO in Kunming.

In related news, it has also being reported that six Yunnanese are under quarantine in Chengdu after flying the same Sichuan Airlines flight from Beijing to Chengdu as the man who tested positive for the H1N1 virus.

Dali-Lijiang rail line to open in December
The long-awaited Dali-Lijiang rail line (大丽铁路) is scheduled to commence operations on the last day of this year, according to a Dushi Shibao report.

Of the rail line's 164 kilometers, 22 kilometers are on bridges and 78 kilometers are tunneled – 62 percent of the line travels over bridges or through tunnels. At present, work crews are boring through Heluo Shan (禾洛山), the final mountain to be tunneled before the line enters Lijiang.

Work on the Dali-Lijiang line began in 2004. The line will begin at Dali East Station, traveling along the eastern shore of Erhai Lake with stops at Shangguan (上关), Xiyi (西邑) and Heqing (鹤庆) before arriving in Lijiang.

The rail line will eventually be extended to Shangri-la (Zhongdian) and then on to Lhasa.

Kunming to crack down on electric bicycles
Starting tomorrow, Kunming police will be cracking down on illegal operation of electric bicycles around the city and will be issuing fines ranging from five to 50 yuan, according to local media reports. Fineable offenses will include carrying multiple passengers, going the wrong way, riding in car lanes, riding on sidewalks and running red lights.

The combination of rapidly growing numbers of electric bicycles on Kunming's streets – there are an estimated 700,000 electric bikes in the city today - and the legal gray area the vehicles occupy have led to increasing safety problems.

In 2004, two people died in electric bike accidents in Kunming, compared to 20 last year and 13 in the first four months of this year. So far this year, electric bikes have been involved in roughly 25 percent of the traffic accident calls received by police.

The crackdown on electric bicycles will last 100 days, during which it is evidently hoped that vehicle owners will become accustomed to obeying traffic rules.

Man tests negative for swine flu, released from quarantine
The final passenger from a Mexican airline flight containing people infected with the H1N1 virus tested negative for the disease - more commonly known as swine flu – and was from quarantine in Kunming prior to the weekend.

Two days after news of the man's release, China's Health Ministry announced that the first suspected H1N1 case on the mainland - a thirty-year-old man returning from studying in the United States – was under quarantine in a hospital in Chengdu.

Yunnan Governor Qin Guangrong (秦光荣) has ordered provincial health authorities to be vigilant in preventing the H1N1 influenza virus – which is slightly misleadingly being referred to as 'swine flu' (猪流感) in international and domestic media – with a focus on international travelers to the province, according to a Dushi Shibao report.

Travelers on international flights to Kunming Wujiaba International Airport that show any flu-like symptoms will be subject to "close observation" by provincial hygiene and medical staff. Dogs trained in sniffing out diseases have already been deployed at the airport to inspect luggage.

Yunnan hygiene bureau chief Chen Juemin (陈觉民) told reporters yesterday that the province was ready to take any steps necessary to prevent the spread of H1N1 into Yunnan and to contain it should it enter the province.

"However much money is needed, the government will spend that much", Chen said.

Chen did not announce any concrete measures that will be taken to prevent the entry of H1N1 influenza into Yunnan.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a phase 4 alert for the global H1N1 influenza outbreak, the phase before pandemic levels. According to WHO:


While no cases of H1N1 have been announced in China, the SARS outbreak of 2002 and 2003 is still fresh in the minds of many. So far this week, Asian travel and airline stocks have been hit by concerns that the virus could spread into Asia via international air travel – which was one of the main vehicles driving SARS' global spread.

International travel by local residents to high-risk areas was blamed for a cholera outbreak in villages near the city of Yuxi, 90 kilometers south of Kunming, in late January of this year. The outbreak infected at least 47 people before being contained.

Image: news.kunming.cn