BEIJING, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — A section of the highway between southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan Province was blocked by mudflow on Saturday. Transportation was suspended due to that.

    The section, at Lizhi County of Linzhi Prefecture in Tibet, was damaged by mudflow caused by heavy rainfall, said Sun Hongjun, an armed police officer in charge of the repair work.

    August was a rainy season in Tibet, and rainfall there increased by 30 percent in the first half compared with that of the normal level in the past years. This brought risks to the road and transportation.

    Repair work is expected to be finished in about a week.

    HOHHOT, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday called for more efforts to promote sound and fast growth in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

    Li, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made an inspection tour of the region from Aug. 28 to 30. He visited factories, markets, pastoral areas and residential districts in Hohhot, Manzhouli and Ordos.

    He said Inner Mongolia should develop economy with local characteristics, boost the development of modern agriculture and animal husbandry, and rationally develop and utilize mineral resources.

    The region, one of China’s important energy bases, should increase its energy supply with a highlight on the production security as well. Meanwhile, it should promote the development of recycling economy, and continue implementing energy saving and emission reducing policies.

    He pointed out the eastern part of Inner Mongolia was a region of vast land area and great marketing potential. It should seize the opportunities to further strengthen its economic power.

    He further stressed that, Inner Mongolia, the important ecological shelter for China’s northern region, should pay more attention on ecological development and environmental protection.

    During the visit, Li showed great concern on people’s livelihood. He called for greater efforts to raise urban and rural people’s income through various channels, and better solve people’s housing and medical care problems, to further improve their lives.

    PANZHIHUA, Sichuan, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — Twenty-two people were dead after an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale hit Panzhihua City in southwest China on Saturday.

    As of 9 p.m., 17 people were reported dead and about 100 others injured in Sichuan, and five others dead and 26 other injured in neighboring Yunnan Province.

    The quake struck the juncture of Renhe District of Panzhihua and Huili County of Liangshan Prefecture at 4:30 p.m. (Beijing time). The epicenter was about 50 km southeast of downtown Panzhihua, at 26.2 degrees north and 101.9 degrees east and at a depth of 10 km, the National Seismograph Network Center said.

    In Panzhihua, a 54-year-old man was killed in debris in Miyi County and another person was killed Yanbian County. Nearly 1,000 houses were destroyed and cracks appeared in walls of more than 400 houses.

    In the affected counties of Liangshan Prefecture, 86 people were injured, and many houses were destroyed or in dangerous conditions. The number of people buried in the ruins were not immediately available.

    The quake also affected Chuxiong Prefecture in Yunnan Province, leaving five people dead and 26 others were injured, 11 severely, as of 8:30 p.m., said Mengfu, a prefecture government official.

    The casualties in Yunnan were reported in Yongren, Yuanmou, Wuding and Dayao counties, in which four deaths were in Yuanmou, about 55 km from the epicenter, and another in Yongren, about 30 km from the epicenter.

    ”Locals in the county rushed out into the open. Cracks appeared on house walls and many windows were broken,” said Zheng Zhouwei, a local legislator in Yongren.

    Yunan’s capital, Kunming, about 150 km from the epicenter, and Sichuan’s capital of Chengdu both felt the tremor.

    Another above magnitude-6 quake was not expected in the stricken area in the next two weeks, said Liu Jie, an expert at the National Seismograph Network Center.

    Working teams from China Earthquake Administration, and Sichuan and Yunnan provincial earthquake bureaus were heading for the stricken area.

    Heavy rain and rugged terrain greatly hampered the rescue efforts.

    Due to poor communication, detailed casualties were still under calculation.

    An average 118 people live on one sq km in the quake-stricken area.

    AMMAN, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — Jordan’s business community Saturday called for more Chinese investments in the kingdom, official news agency Petra reported.

    ”The private sector seeks to have advanced relations with China and is working to attract Chinese investments into the kingdom,” president of the Jordan Chamber of Commerce Haider Murad said when meeting a delegation from the Chinese Bank for Development.

    The president said he hopes more Chinese projects could be set up in Jordan.

    Murad also called for increasing Chinese imports from Jordan, mainly potash, sodium, phosphate, fertilizers, medicine, cosmetics and food stuffs.

    Jordan’s imports from China stood at 1.298 billion U.S. dollars, while its exports amounted to 72 million dollars, making China one of Jordan’s main trade partners.

    The Jordan Chamber of Commerce is a nonprofit organization which provides umbrella for 15 chambers of commerce located in the major cities and districts of the country.

    BEIJING, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — Aluminum Corporation of China Ltd., the country’s largest producer of primary aluminum, posted a 65.56-percent drop in its first-half net profit, which stood at 2.4 billion yuan (350.4 million U.S. dollars), the company reported late on Friday.

    Half-year revenue totaled 3.5 billion yuan, down 64.08 percent year on year. The earnings per share were 0.18 yuan, down 68.33 percent from a year earlier, according to its interim report.

    The soaring price of imported materials, freight and energy pushed up costs, and declining sales crippled overall profits. In addition, the severe winter weather at the beginning of the year hurt the company’s production and sales, said Liu Shuwei, director of Chinese enterprise research center at the Central University of Finance and Economics.

    In the first half, the company’s alumina sector experienced a drop in sales and sales prices due to increased use for itself and weakening trade. Revenue of the sector was 16.4 billion yuan, down 9.66 percent from the same period last year. Sales were 2.54 million tonnes, 460,000 tonnes down from the first half of last year.

    The weakening performance also applied to the electrolytic aluminium sector, which saw revenue fall by 2.07 billion yuan to 29.5 billion yuan. Sales in the first six months stood at 1.35 million tonnes, 58,300 tonnes less than the first half of last year.

    WUHAN, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — Torrential rains had been slashing central China’s Hubei Province since Thursday, leaving four people dead and three others missing.

    The rain affected the life of 4.07 million people and destroyed crops in 35 counties across the province, a spokesman of the provincial civil affairs department said on Saturday

    Several landslides, triggered by downpours, took place in Ziguiand Xingshan counties.

    In some counties, rain water had poured into the houses of urban residents.

    The provincial government had sent 100 tents to Zigui. Three working teams were heading for the worst-stricken areas to assist disaster relief efforts.