2006 in China

Events

April 14: A man disfigured in a bear attack becomes the first in China to have a face transplant.^[2]
April 30: 24 miners killed in a mine explosion in the Chinese province of Shaanxi.^[3]

May 11: Baidu Baike, a Chinese collaborative online encyclopedia, is launched in People's Republic of China by Baidu.com, modelled on Wikipedia but heavily self censored. Wikipedia is largely inaccessible without a proxy in China.^[4]
May 20: The construction of the Three Gorges Dam wall, the largest dam in the world, is completed in the People's Republic of China.^[5]

July 1: The Qingzang railway launches a trial operation, making Tibet the last province-level entity of China to have a conventional railway.^[6]
July 6: The Nathula Pass between India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opens for trade after 44 years.^[7]
July 7: An explosion in the village of Dongzhai village in Shanxi province in north China kills 43 people.
July 11: Liu Xiang of China sets a new World Record for the 110 metres hurdles at the Super Grand Prix in Lausanne with a time of 12.88 seconds.
July 22: July 2006 Yunnan earthquake: An earthquake measuring 5.1-5.2 in magnitude hits a mountainous region of Yunnan Province in south China killing at least 18-19 people and injuring at least 60 more.^[8]
July 27: More than 80 people dead and missing as a result of Typhoon Kaemi.

August 10: More than 1.5 million Chinese evacuate while Super Typhoon Saomai, the strongest to land in China in 50 years, makes landfall in Wenzhou, Zhejiang.^[9]

November 13: Nanshan Colliery disaster: A colliery explosion in Shanxi province in northern China kills at least 24 miners.^[10]

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Deaths

February 13 — Wang Xuan, computer scientist (b. 1937)
February 22 — Bill Tung, Hong Kong actor and horse racing commentator (b. 1933)
February 25 — Liang Lingguang, 11th Governor of Guangdong (b. 1916)
March 6 — Ruth Weiss, Austrian-Chinese educator and journalist (b. 1908)
March 11 — Liu Zhijian, lieutenant general (b. 1912)
March 17 — Yuan Baojing, billionaire (b. 1966)
May 12 — Huang Xinting, lieutenant general (b. 1913)
September 14 — Rao Shoukun, lieutenant general (b. 1915)
October 5 — Liao Hansheng, politician (b. 1911)
October 13 — Wang Guangmei, politician, philanthropist and wife of Liu Shaoqi (b. 1921)
October 28 — Henry Fok, Hong Kong entrepreneur and politician (b. 1923)
November 20 — Hong Xuezhi, general and politician (b. 1913)
November 23 — Chen-Lu Tsou, biochemist (b. 1923)
December 11 — Lo Tak-shing, former President of Law Society of Hong Kong (b. 1935)
December 20 — Ma Ji, actor (b. 1934)

Incumbents