Rain-triggered flood disrupts traffic in Ningxia city

Heavy rainfall from Monday night to Tuesday triggered flooding which disrupted traffic in parts of Wuzhong City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, prompting local emergency departments to launch drainage and rescue operations.

Firefighters cordoned off submerged road sections, used pumps to drain floodwaters, and cleared debris-clogged sewer networks.

They handled multiple emergencies involving people and vehicles trapped in floodwaters.

Traffic has returned to normal across Wuzhong's urban area.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠South China's Guangdong Province has seen its robot manufacturers lead the transition from sending out samples for trial use to fulfilling large-scale overseas orders as one of China's major hubs for foreign trade and smart equipment.

Since the start of 2026, domestically built robots have been given a major opportunity to expand on a large scale in global markets.

Notably, a dedicated customs tariff code for cleaning robots took effect in January, marking a significant step toward large-scale exports for the sector.

The momentum has remained strong in the second half of the year, with overseas orders continuing to grow.

The surge in demand is turning domestically built robots into a new growth engine for China's high-end equipment exports.

"Our overseas shipments are performing extremely well right now. Our cleaning robots are particularly popular in Europe, Japan, Republic of Korea, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. We have seen year-on-year doubling of growth compared with last year. We review production plans for the cleaning robots on a weekly and monthly basis, and shipping schedules are fully booked," said Gong Ziyu, head of CVTE's robotics business group.

"Robots can take over high-risk, high-pressure work, sustaining stable demand. Overseas orders are rising steadily, registering around 40 percent year-on-year growth compared with last year," said Huang Jian, executive of Guangdong Lingdu Intel-tech Development Co., Ltd.