Northeast China's Liaoning Province has been hit hard by torrential rains over the past few days, causing widespread flooding and disruptions across the region, forcing the Ministry of Water Resources to activate a level IV emergency response and deploy additional teams to help manage the crisis.
From Sunday night to Tuesday morning, the western parts of the province, including Jianchang County, were particularly affected, with some areas experiencing extraordinarily heavy rainfall and temporary communication outages.
Dalian's Pulandian District saw over 220 millimeters of rain from Monday morning to Tuesday noon, resulting in serious flooding in low-lying areas. Local authorities are working around the clock to control the water levels and minimize damage.
Local shop owners have taken active measures to protect their business from flooding by placing sandbags at the entrances of shops. But still, a few areas were heavily affected.
Heavy rainfall also trapped more than 30 residents in Pulandian, who were later safely transfered by rescuers.
Liaoning's Chaoyang City experienced its most intense rain of the season, with some areas recording over 240 millimeters.
Inner Mongolia's Aohan Banner issued a red alert (the highest in the four-tier alert) for torrential rains, as rain exceeded 100 millimeters in just three hours.
Jiangsu Province's Yangzhou recorded 236.9 millimeters of rain in 24 hours till Tuesday afternoon, leading to severe urban flooding. The local government has initiated emergency measures to tackle the situation.
In Fujian Tulou Nanjing Scenic area in Fujian Province's Zhangzhou, Typhoon Jongdari brought flash floods and led to the temporary closure of popular tourist sites.
Liaoning Province launches emergency response to rain-triggered severe flooding
A Chinese medical research lab in Hangzhou City of east China's Zhejiang Province is using artificial intelligence (AI) to speed up the development timeline for a new drug to treat progeria, a rare genetic condition that causes rapid aging in children.
The Liangzhu Laboratory, also known as the Zhejiang Provincial Laboratory for Systems Medicine and Precision Diagnosis, was established in 2020 on the campus of Zhejiang University.
Using AI algorithms, the lab has designed and developed a new drug for treating the disease and has achieved outstanding results in laboratory trials ahead of upcoming clinical trials.
"Our project has been underway for about three years, with 90 percent of the time actually spent on [preclinical] experiments. Thanks to AI algorithms, our drug design process has been remarkably fast and efficient," said Shen Ning, a researcher at the Liangzhu Laboratory.
Shen says there are over 7,000 known rare diseases worldwide, yet very few treatment options exist. The traditional drug development process, ranging from target identification and drug screening to clinical trials and regulatory approval, is not only expensive but also time-consuming. The application of AI large models is now helping to transform this process.
"With traditional large-scale screening, the development of small molecule drugs used to take 15 to 20 years, with a very high failure rate. Now, with the support of AI algorithms, the drug development cycle can be shortened to just three to five years," Shen said.
In 2021, the Liangzhu Laboratory formed a multidisciplinary team, bringing together experts in clinical medicine, biology, mathematics, computer science, and statistics. Since then, the team has developed several deep learning AI algorithms, with a focus on precision diagnosis and treatment for genetic and rare diseases.
"We analyze disease data for different diseases and even individual patients. We hope that with AI tools, we can provide a more personalized treatment plan for each patient," said Shen.
Chinese researchers use AI technology to accelerate drug development