Six students drown after falling into slurry-filled tank on field trip
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The accident occurred at an ore processing plant in northern China.
Six university students drowned on Wednesday after they fell into a tank while on a field trip to an ore processing plant in northern China, Chinese state media reported.
The students, who were majoring in mineral processing engineering at Northeastern University in Shenyang, were on a field trip to Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of China, when the grid plate they were standing on collapsed as they were observing a flotation cell, according to state media.
Flotation is a stage in the mining process used to concentrate the minerals. Finely ground minerals are mixed with water in a container called a flotation cell to produce a 'metallurgical pulp' that helps sort the valuable from the unneeded materials.
The students fell into the flotation cell, which looks like a large container, about 10.20am.
Rescuers scrambled to retrieve them, but the students were pronounced dead. A teacher was also injured in the incident.
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Otago Daily Times
19 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Response to info dot trial ‘really positive'
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RNZ News
29-07-2025
- RNZ News
Chinese cuisine to warm the soul this winter
A bowl of steamed dumplings is served during Chinese New Year. Photo: 123rf The cold winter months are an ideal time to prepare warm, restorative dishes that can fortify the soul. A range of ingredients are believed to rejuvenate the body, according to Chinese culinary tradition. Meat features prominently in such dishes, but there are usually plenty of delectable vegetarian options available as well as majestic hot pots. "No banquet is complete without chicken," according to an age-old Cantonese proverb, and so it's perhaps not surprising that poultry features prominently in many Chinese winter dishes. Hakka pepper chicken in pig's stomach can almost be described as a soulful pot of intensity. In this dish, a whole chicken is carefully wrapped inside a cleaned pig's stomach and slowly simmered with white peppercorns, ginger, goji berries and other herbs. The result is a creamy, milky broth bursting with aroma, with tender strips of chicken and chewy tripe that warms from within. 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Otago Daily Times
25-07-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Stitched into position
Embroidery once defined someone's standing in China, writes Moira White. We are all familiar with a range of id badges — our own or others' — from military dog tags to membership cards or security passes of one form or another. Some we carry, others we wear clipped to a pocket, or on a lanyard around our neck. They convey a range of information that might include a name, job title, place of employment, or sometimes a photograph. However, none that I have seen are even remotely as beautiful as the silk rank badges (buzi) that were worn for centuries by Chinese court officials. Ming dynasty clothing regulations in 1391 required court officials to wear decorative textile patches that showed which of the nine civil or military ranks they had attained. Birds were used to indicate the civil ranks, while the military ranks were denoted by a variety of animals. Censors, who conducted special investigations for the emperor and reported on other officials, had their own badge depicting a mythical creature, the xiezhi. The badge tradition continued into the Qing dynasty, with most showing a representation of the universe: waves below a landscape and central creature, above which were the sky and clouds. The rank badges (sometimes called Mandarin squares) were worn as matching pairs on the front and back of ceremonial robes. Most are more or less square in shape. Because the robes had a centre front opening, badges on the back were a single piece, but those on the front had a vertical split down the middle. They don't, of course, include the name of an individual, but we do know that each person who wore one had been granted permission to do so by the emperor. However, he (the officials were all men) had to provide and pay for the badge himself, which is one explanation for the variations that can be seen in the style and composition of the design. The exams for the civil officials were taken after years of study, so we know at least those who had qualified to wear the badges were hard working, intelligent, and focused. Tūhura Otago Museum has recently received five pairs of civil rank badges that were given to the donor's mother in the mid-20th century, through her association with the Chinese Presbyterian Church in Dunedin. We already had a small number in the collection. The de Beers donated a censor's badge in the 1980s, and Maud Brown gave us four single badges in 1973; none of them are military. She and her husband, the Rev Thomas Brown, worked for the London Missionary Society in China for most of the 1910s and 1920s. In all five pairs of this most recent generous donation, the bird looks towards a circular red sun, representing the emperor. At least three of the pairs show a silver pheasant, denoting the fifth civil rank. Identifying the birds can be a bit of a challenge, not only for me, but the long, serrated tail feathers in many embroidered versions of silver pheasants are distinctive. Apparently, this is the species of bird most frequently encountered in collections of rank badges. The other two pairs show what may be a wild goose (the fourth civil rank). While wives of officials had been entitled to wear the badge of their husband's rank for a long time, researchers suggest that in the mid-18th century, a custom developed for the animal in a wife's badge to face in the opposite direction to those in her husband's. The creatures would then face one another when the couple sat side by side. Our recent gift includes two pairs facing to the left (said to have been those worn by men, as civil officials sat on the left of the emperor), and three to the right. In four of these pairs, the bird stands on one foot on a rock or hill, but in the fifth, the bird flies through a sky of stylised clouds. Even among these examples, there are many variations in the details. Some have auspicious symbols, the border patterns differ, and the plants depicted on the sides, for instance, vary greatly and are perhaps something the wearers were allowed to choose for themselves. The size of rank badges reduced over the centuries and for that and other reasons, it seems likely that those which comprise this new gift were made in the later years of the Qing dynasty. The social role of rank badges ceased when the Qing dynasty ended in 1911, but removed from their original context, they remained of appeal to textile collectors for their beauty and interest, and the skill shown in their making. Moira White is curator humanities at Tūhura Otago Museum.
