China will strengthen urban renewal efforts through a centralized spatial planning system aimed at optimizing resource management and preserving historical areas, said Zhang Bing, chief planner of the Ministry of Natural Resources on Tuesday.
China unveiled a set of guidelines earlier on Thursday which is designed to achieve key progress in the country's urban renewal campaign by 2030. They also aim to improve safety conditions, enhance service efficiency, elevate living environments, develop business models, and preserve cultural heritage.
Zhang outlined several specific support measures during a State Council Information Office (SCIO) press conference, highlighting a "whole lifecycle" approach to land use and data-sharing across government departments.
"By establishing the 'one map' unified spatial database integrated with natural resource management and territorial spatial planning, we will intensify the investigation of existing resource assets, figure out their quantity, ownership and utilization. And we will meet the requirement of "old cities cannot be demolished again", carry out targeted investigations on spatial elements of natural, cultural and historical aspects within the city to form a unified base map and data base. On the 'one map' system, we will push for a whole lifecycle management on land survey, ownership registration, rights and interests, urban planning, usage regulation and law enforcement, streamline data sharing among departments, truly realize the management of assets, the use of resources, and the revitalization of cities, and support urban renewal actions," he said.
The ministry pledged closer collaboration with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development to address policy gaps, saying that efforts will be made to identify challenges early and enhance policy support to ensure the urban renewal plans are implemented.
China to boost urban renewal with unified land-use mapping system
All 69 victims of last week's deadly high-speed train collision in Urda, central Spain, have been identified, while 29 injured people remain hospitalized, authorities said Monday.
Spain's Integrated Data Center (CID) confirmed that the provisional death toll remains at 69, including 54 Spanish nationals and 15 foreigners. The victims, all adults, included 40 men and 29 women.
The foreign victims included four Americans, two Australians, two Japanese and one each from Argentina, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Mexico, Portugal and Tunisia.
The Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Toledo and Ciudad Real completed the identification process. Of the 69 victims, 56 were identified through fingerprint analysis conducted by the Civil Guard's Criminalistics Service, while the remaining 13 were identified through DNA testing by the National Institute of Toxicology.
The families of all 69 victims have been notified of the identification results, while the relevant consular offices have also been informed in cases involving foreign nationals.
Meanwhile, the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha reported that 29 people injured in the collision remain hospitalized in four hospitals, including nine in intensive care units and 20 in general wards.
Of the 110 patients initially admitted to six hospitals, 81 have been discharged, according to the regional health authorities. Nine patients have been transferred to hospitals in Madrid, including one on Monday, while another has been transferred to Andalusia.
Recovery operations at the accident site have made progress. All carriages of the two trains involved in the collision, operated by Iryo and Spain's national railway operator Renfe, have now been removed from the tracks, Spanish news agency EFE reported, citing Civil Guard sources.
The carriages of the Renfe AVE train were removed overnight and transferred to a secure area, while the last two carriages of the Iryo train were cleared from the Madrid-Andalusia high-speed railway line on Monday afternoon. The Civil Guard continues to search the accident site for human remains, with around 50 officers deployed in the area, according to EFE.
All 69 victims of Spain's high-speed train collision identified
