Rescue efforts are ongoing in the badly-hit Bidur municipality of Nepal's Nuwakot district following Wednesday's devastating mudslide along the Nepal-China border, with towns left buried under thick layers of mud as heavy machinery now works to clear the debris.
Footage captured by a China Global Television Network (CGTN) correspondent showed that homes, roads, and bridges in the area have been either submerged or entirely swept away by the deluge, while rescue teams and excavators are working tirelessly to clear mud and repair damaged infrastructure.
The catastrophic flooding was triggered after parts of a massive glacier nearly 5,000 meters above sea level broke off in Nepal, sending powerful torrents of mud, water and rocks rushing down the mountainsides in a matter of minutes.
Authorities reported on Sunday that the disaster has so far claimed 734 lives in Nepal, with 2,498 people still missing, including 320 foreign tourists.
Heavy machinery deployed as Nepali town left buried in thick layers of mud, debris
China and Kyrgyzstan have continued to optimize customs clearance procedures and broaden the range of traded goods in recent years, accelerating trade cooperation between businesses in both countries and strengthening their multifaceted partnership.
China is becoming a significant emerging consumer market for Kyrgyzstan, with bilateral trade exceeding 81 billion yuan (about 12.04 billion U.S. dollars) in the first seven months of this year.
The Kyrgyzstan-China (Chongqing) Economic and Trade Cooperation Center, based in Chongqing Municipality in southwest China, has been providing one-stop, long-term services, including policy consultation and business negotiations, to enterprises from both countries. These efforts have helped expand areas of cooperation from traditional freight transport to more diverse sectors such as new energy, cross-border e-commerce, and modern agriculture.
Data shows that in the first seven months of this year, Chongqing's imports and exports with Kyrgyzstan grew by more than 50 percent year on year.
"We have invited many high-quality Kyrgyz dealers to come to Chongqing for on-site inspections and to purchase our products. Taking the automobile category as an example, from January to July this year, our total export value has exceeded 100 million yuan, an increase of more than 70 percent compared with the same period last year," said Hu Qingpeng, executive director of the center.
China is a major importer of Kyrgyzstan's specialty agricultural and food products, including mountain honey and dairy products. Agreements on quarantine protocols have also been successively signed for a number of Kyrgyzstan's key agricultural products, such as kidney beans and dried fruits, as China continues to expand the range of import categories from Kyrgyzstan.
"The wool and cashmere industry is an important industry for Kyrgyzstan. The local livestock resources are rich and have enormous development potential. Last year, China and Kyrgyzstan officially signed the protocol on veterinary and sanitary requirements for the export of washed wool from Kyrgyzstan to China, which has opened up the Chinese market for Kyrgyzstan's high-quality livestock resources," said Zhang Yang, a customs officer at Horgos Customs in northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
China-Kyrgyzstan trade deepens as bilateral cooperation diversifies
