Coal miners rescued

    Forty-five exhausted coal miners trapped by a cave-in were rescued in Henan Province on Saturday, ending a 36-hour ordeal*. Eight other miners were killed.

    The rescue was the biggest in the country since April last year, when 115 miners were rescued alive after being trapped for eight days in a mine in the north.

    Property agencies

    The number of real estate agency branches had fallen by more than 70 percent to about 2,200 since the beginning of the year, according to the city’s real estate association figures.

    In June, small agencies resorted to reducing the number of branches to survive in a sluggish* housing market. The medium-sized agencies followed suit in August. The trend was now started extending to the bigger agencies.

    394 die in car crashes

    Road crashes were responsible for the deaths of 394 people in the first 10 months of the year, a fall of more than 12 percent compared with the same period last year, the city traffic authority said on Friday.

    The city reported 1,058 traffic crashes from January 1 to October 15, a fall of 22.83 percent year on year. A total of 1,091 people were injured.

    Binhai Hospital

    Binhai Hospital in Nanshan District, which would be managed by the University of Hong Kong, will start trial operations on December 28.

    At least four departments would be opened on December 28 and all facilities would be opened at the beginning of next year.

    The city spent 19.5 billion yuan (US$3.08 billion) on 101 medical projects from 2005 to 2010.

(SD-Agencies)