Planes grounded

ABOUT 9,000 passengers were stranded yesterday due to heavy rain in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, according to local authorities.

A rainstorm hit the city from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. yesterday. Starting from 10:30 a.m., heavy rain again pelted the city, forcing the airport to temporarily close both of its runways twice.

Ex-official jailed

A FORMER senior political advisor from Central China’s Hubei Province was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined 2 million yuan (about US$293,000) for taking bribes by a court in Central China’s Henan Province on Tuesday.

Liu Shanqiao, former vice chairman of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was convicted of accepting money and gifts worth over 17.9 million yuan personally or through persons of interest between 2009 and 2017.