735m railway trips

MORE Chinese traveled by rail during the just-concluded summer travel rush, the latest data from the national railway operator showed.

A total of 735 million railway trips were made across the country from July 1 to Aug. 31, up 10.4 percent year on year, according to China Railway Corp. (CRC).

During the summer travel rush, from July 1 to Aug. 31, college students made trips between their hometowns and universities during the summer holiday, while the country welcomed the busy season for tourism and leisure.

Tropical rainforest

CHINA’S largest tropical rainforest on the southern island of Hainan has increased by about 200,000 hectares in the past 20 years, thanks to enhanced protection and anti-poverty campaigns that wean villagers off illegal lumbering and burning for hunting.

The forestry bureau of Hainan said the province’s tropical rainforest areas reached 659,300 hectares in 2018, and the forest coverage rate in the protected area rose from less than 90 percent to 98.16 percent in the past two decades.

Out of poverty

THE city of Nyingchi in Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region has made good progress in poverty eradication, the government of the city has announced.

The local government said more than 23,000 people in the city have been lifted out of poverty since 2016, with the poverty headcount ratio of the city dropping from 16.4 percent to 0.33 percent.