China Scene: North

Worker survives after steel rod pierces body

A young worker at a construction site in Shenyang, Liaoning, had a miraculous escape after being skewered by a steel bar.

The incident happened on Saturday morning as the worker Zhang jumped down from a scaffolding and fell right into the upright bar that pierced through his body. Fortunately, an ambulance rushed him to hospital immediately where doctors took out the 65-centimeter long rod. He is now out of danger.

(www.sohu.com)

Girl holds feast to celebrate parents' divorce

An 18-year-old girl from Daqing, Heilongjiang, held a feast to which she invited all the relatives of her parents to announce their divorce, soon after being admitted to a college.

Her parents' marriage had ended a year ago but they continued to live together to avoid putting their daughter through the stress of a broken family as she prepared to enter college.

Zhang Yang was aware of this and after receiving an enrollment notification from the college last Saturday, she persuaded her parents to get divorced for the sake of their future happiness.

(Daqing Evening News)

Police name alarm posts to help herdsmen

Police have named more than 990 alarm posts set up throughout the vast grasslands in the border areas of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, so that herdsman can help police identify their location in the case of a natural disaster or other emergencies.

The names follow those of the locals in whose settlements the posts are located, to help the herdsmen remember them easily.

(www.xinhuanet.com)

Plea to Dalian residents not to catch spotted deer

The wildlife protection authorities in Dalian, Liaoning Province, have appealed to locals not to catch a spotted deer that has been seen on the seaport's coastal roads in recent days.

A few days ago, some residents tried to catch the deer as it strolled through a park, but failed. "We just wanted to catch it and release it in the wild," they said. But, Song, head of Dalian's wildlife conservation station, told them the deer was probably a rarely-seen wild one from the hills nearby. "It would be scared away if people tried to catch it," he said.

(Dalian Evening News)

(China Daily 08/23/2007 page6)