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China's Xi Urges All-out Rescue Efforts after Deadly Highway Bridge Collapse

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a collapsed bridge is seen in Zhashui County in Shangluo City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Saturday, July 20, 2024. (Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a collapsed bridge is seen in Zhashui County in Shangluo City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Saturday, July 20, 2024. (Xinhua via AP)
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China's Xi Urges All-out Rescue Efforts after Deadly Highway Bridge Collapse

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a collapsed bridge is seen in Zhashui County in Shangluo City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Saturday, July 20, 2024. (Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a collapsed bridge is seen in Zhashui County in Shangluo City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Saturday, July 20, 2024. (Xinhua via AP)

President Xi Jinping urged all-out rescue efforts after a highway bridge collapse on Friday in Shaanxi province in China's northwest killed 11 people, state media reported on Saturday.

The incident occurred at 8:40 p.m. in Shangluo city on Friday when a highway bridge collapsed due to a flash flood, causing some vehicles to fall into the river.

As of 10 a.m. on Saturday, five vehicles were confirmed to have fallen into the water and 30 people were reported missing, state media said.

Xi said China is in a critical period for flood control and local governments must take responsibility to enhance monitoring and early warning.

A photo released by the official Xinhua News Agency showed a section of the bridge snapped and folded down at almost a 90-degree angle into the rushing brown water below.

China's national fire and rescue authority said on Saturday it had dispatched a rescue team to the site that included 859 people, 90 vehicles, 20 boats and 41 drones.

China's western and southwestern provinces are particularly prone to flooding and landslides due to their mountainous landscapes and the powerful rivers that run through them. Mining, tourism and rising urbanization have also disturbed a precarious balance with the natural environment that had been sustained over thousands of years.

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UN Approves More Transparent Procedures for People, Entities to Get Off Sanctions Lists

Members of the United Nations Security Council attend a meeting at UN headquarters in New York, US, October 5, 2022. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
Members of the United Nations Security Council attend a meeting at UN headquarters in New York, US, October 5, 2022. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
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UN Approves More Transparent Procedures for People, Entities to Get Off Sanctions Lists

Members of the United Nations Security Council attend a meeting at UN headquarters in New York, US, October 5, 2022. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
Members of the United Nations Security Council attend a meeting at UN headquarters in New York, US, October 5, 2022. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved more transparent procedures Friday for the hundreds of individuals, companies and other entities who are subject to UN sanctions and want to get off the blacklists.
The resolution, co-sponsored by Malta and the United States, also authorizes the establishment of a new informal working group by the Security Council to examine ways to improve the effectiveness of UN sanctions.
Malta’s UN Ambassador Vanessa Frazier told the council before the vote that the resolution is a “clear signal of this council’s commitment towards due process.”
It authorizes a new “focal point” to directly engage with those seeking to get off sanctions lists and gather information from a variety of sources to share with the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions, which makes the decisions on delisting, she said. And it requires the reason for the committee’s decision to be given to the petitioner.
After the vote, US deputy ambassador Robert Wood called the council’s unanimous approval “a historic moment,” saying delisting procedures haven't changed for 18 years.
“The international community is demonstrating its commitment to values such as transparency and fairness in UN sanctions processes,” he said.
“Security Council sanctions are an important tool to deter an array of threats to peace and security, ranging from the proliferation of arms and weapons of mass destruction, to countering terrorism and preventing human rights abuses,” The Associated Press quoted Wood as saying.
But he stressed that to be effective, sanctions must be targeted and there must be “robust and fair procedures for delisting when warranted.”
The United States is against indefinite and punitive sanctions, and supports delisting and easing sanctions when warranted, Wood said. “But we are concerned by a growing tendency to prematurely lift sanctions, when the threats that prompted their imposition in the first place still persist.”
He didn’t give any examples but the US and its allies including South Korea and Japan have vehemently opposed Russian and Chinese proposals to ease sanctions on North Korea, which violates UN sanctions regularly with its ballistic missile tests and nuclear developments.
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky said Moscow proceeds from the premise that Security Council sanctions “are one of the most stringent and robust responses to threats to peace. Therefore, they should be applied in an exceedingly cautious way.”
“They need to be irreproachable, be substantiated, and they need to be nuanced,” he said. “The use of such sanctions as a punitive tool is unacceptable.”
Polyansky stressed that sanctions need to reflect the real situation in a country and “help facilitate a political process.”
But he said the Security Council doesn’t always follow this approach, and blamed the West for increasingly encouraging the use of sanctions in recent years.