Latest news with #YantaiNanshanUniversity
The Star
08-07-2025
- Health
- The Star
Cancer can't stop motivated PhD candidate
Compiled by C. ARUNO, SHYAFIQ DZULKIFLI and R. ARAVINTHAN DESPITE a long and arduous battle with lymphoma, 38-year-old Chia Chi Kuan is determined to complete his PhD studies in Education at Universiti Malaya, China Press reported. Chia was diagnosed in 2013, shortly after finishing his Master's degree. 'I found out I had cancer right after I finished my Master's degree, which was why I had yet to get insurance,' he said. His medical expenses have since been covered by charitable organisations, relatives, friends and Universiti Malaya. Since his diagnosis, Chia has undergone two bone-marrow transplants and numerous chemotherapy sessions, but he is yet to beat the disease. The disease also impacts his daily life. He requires 12 hours of sleep a day just to manage eight hours of work on his PhD studies. This has made it impossible for him to take on part-time work to support himself. 'I am relying on a student loan for my studies. My living expenses are paid by my parents and relatives.' Chia submitted his PhD dissertation in March. He plans to start looking for a job soon, but in the meantime, he is appealing to the public for RM225,600 to complete his cancer treatment. Chia said fighting cancer has taught him to face life's challenges head on with courage. 'If I hadn't gotten cancer, my life might have taken a different path. I might not have held so firmly to values like integrity and morality – things that many people tend to overlook.' Those interested in supporting Chia's journey can donate via China Press through the webpage > University students in Shandong province, China, are flocking to air-conditioned supermarkets to escape a severe heatwave, the daily also reported. According to an undergraduate, none of the student hostels are equipped with air-conditioning, making them unbearable during the scorching temperatures. 'It's so hot that we can only go to sleep at 2am. By 6am, we are woken up by the sweltering heat.' Photos showing rows of students squatting along supermarket aisles were widely shared online. However, a student said they had to return to their hostels by 9pm due to curfew. With temperatures in Shandong reaching 40°C last week, several undergraduates at the Yantai Nanshan University reportedly collapsed from heatstroke and were sent to hospital. When interviewed, a university spokesperson said the hostels had old electricity infrastructure and were not equipped to handle the demands from air-conditioning. The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a, it denotes a separate news item.
Reuters
07-07-2025
- Climate
- Reuters
Students shelter in libraries as heatwave hits eastern China
BEIJING, July 7 (Reuters) - Universities in eastern China scrambled to upgrade their dorms with air conditioning, and one let students sleep in cooler libraries, after near record temperatures raised concerns about the health of students and staff. One student at Qingdao University in Shandong suffered from heat stroke, and the school would upgrade its student accommodation over the summer break, Jimu News, an arm of state-run Hubei Daily, reported. One member of staff there died on Sunday morning after showing signs of "physical distress", the university said, without saying whether that was linked to the heatwave. The staff member was a dormitory supervisor, Jimu News said. A total of 28 locations across central Henan and eastern Shandong provinces issued their most severe alerts for extreme heat on Monday. Parts of the coastal city of Qingdao saw temperatures soar to 40.5 degrees Celsius (104.9 degrees Fahrenheit) over the weekend, just 0.5C below the highest recorded there since records began in 1961, according to the official Qingdao Daily. Qingdao University, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters, was one of at least six colleges in Shandong to announce plans to upgrade student accommodation in recent days. Yantai Nanshan University, also in Shandong, said on Monday it would let students stay overnight in libraries as it prepared to work on the student halls. Video footage posted by Jimu News showed scores of students sitting on the floor in air-conditioned supermarkets to escape the heat. The heatwave has piled pressure onto China's power grid. The national electricity load surged to a record 1.47 billion kilowatts on Friday as demand for air conditioning spiked, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The announcements will fuel concerns over Chinese institutions' preparedness for extreme weather events, which scientists say are exacerbated by global warming. In 2022, China was hit by the worst heatwaves since 1961, with many parts enduring a 79-day hot spell from mid-June to late August. According a 2023 report published in the medical journal The Lancet, there were about 50,900 heatwave-related deaths in China that year. No official death toll was disclosed at the time. China does not provide regular tallies of heat-related deaths.
