Shenzhen customs in south China's Guangdong Province have upgraded their facilities and services at the city's ports to speed up entry for international travelers arriving for the upcoming 33rd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting, which is scheduled in November.
Promotional APEC-themed posters and billboards have already been put up at various ports across the city.
Multilingual signage has also been installed to facilitate international travelers.
Meanwhile, smart translation devices capable of real-time translation between 144 languages have been deployed at these ports, according to local customs.
Shenzhen customs upgrade facilities, services ahead of APEC meeting
The swelling Euphrates River has submerged farmland and washed away roads and bridges in Syrian provinces of Deir al-Zour and Raqqa since late May.
The Syrian transitional government has ordered residents along the riverbanks to evacuate as the flood water continues to rise and has inundated villages in the region.
"No one has come to help us. The entire area is submerged. The water level has risen as high as the houses and is still rising. All people are in a hurry to find a shelter. We have nowhere to go," said a local resident.
The flood has caused the Euphrates' water surface to expand to three times its normal extent, from 60.9 square kilometers to 188.7 square kilometers.
The disaster stems from abnormal torrential rain in upstream regions coupled with large-scale water releases from dams, according to Syrian news media reports.
Citing regional water authority sources, Turkish media reported that months of high precipitation raised water levels at Turkey's Ataturk Dam, prompting authorities to carry out "controlled water releases," with the spillway gates opened for the first time in seven years.
Euphrates floods hit northeastern Syria
