Early this morning, a water main ruptured in the vicinity of Panyu and has caused a disruption of service at the South Guangzhou Water Plant and resulted in the loss of 500,000 tons of fresh water, reported Guangzhou Daily.

The ruptured main has compromised service to the southern part of the city including areas of University Town, Tianhe District and Yuexiu District. A rough estimation of areas affected would include areas of Guangzhou going north up to Huangpu Boulevard, west over to Liberation Middle Road, and east over to Huanan Expressway.

As for how bad the situation has gotten, some residents of University Town had already complained of a lack of water this morning while it is currently reported that water pressure has now dropped 30% for residents in Haizhu District. Residents in apartments above five floors now must employ water pumps to draw water up for use.

While other water plants are currently trying to divert a supply over to the affected areas, repairs are estimated to require 1-2 days to complete.

Meanwhile in the “It Can Get Worse, You Know” category, the water supply in Lanzhou has recently be found to contain benzene, causing city residents to panic purchase all of the city’s remaining bottled water.

Photos: Guangzhou Daily

The new Addis Ababa–Lome–Rio de Janeiro–Sao Paulo service is marketed as a seamless gateway to Asia.
Ethiopian hopes to use Addis Ababa to its advantage but joins a long list of airlines competing on the Latin American-Asia route.

Crucially, it will be the sole operator between Addis Ababa and Brazil. However, its conservative approach means a non-direct flight will operate to build demand. Time will tell if the market takes off.

Ethiopian is one the better airlines on the African continent with ambition and vision, but the reality is they are up against bigger, legacy carriers such as Air China and Singapore Airlines.

Guangzhou’s thriving African expat community creates a demand for service between the city and Africa, which Ethiopian is looking to exploit. Conservative estimates put the number of Africans in Guangzhou at 20,000, but it could be as high as 150,000, according to the Globe and Mail:

There are at least 20,000 Africans, mostly from West African nations such as Nigeria, Ghana and Mali, living legally in Guangzhou, a city of about 12 million. The number could be as high as 150,000 if you include the many illegals and those temporarily in the city chasing business opportunities.

The demand is there but the big question is whether it will all work.

Generally, non-SkyTeam alliance carriers have a tougher job of competing with the dominant China Southern.

However, Emirates competes with the Guangzhou-based carrier on the Dubai route. And it has no problem filling planes with feeder traffic transiting at its Dubai hub coming from all over the world. It’s a big airline with a well-established frequent-flyer program – and officially claims the shortest LatAm-Asia service.

That being said, from Guangzhou, Ethiopian has no other feeder traffic or much help from fellow Star Alliance members, but as CAPA reports, it doesn’t have a problem filling planes, which is why it switched to a daily service late last year.

Since Ethiopian has been clipped by the grounding of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners worldwide, the plan may not even leave the gate if it’s new planes are not back in service by June.

Without these aircraft, Ethiopian’s five 777-200LR would not have sufficient capacity to cover its existing long-haul network to Beijing, Guangzhou, Toronto and Washington Dulles, as well as a direct Hong Kong service.

We say watch this space.

Images: BriYYZ/Flickr and CAPA

As of right now, Gangnam Style remains No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Guests in the lobby of the Garden Hotel were minding their own business on Wednesday when a group of people started a flash mob to perform Gangnam Style.  The video below is only available on Youtube at the moment, so you’ll need a VPN to watch.

The city has a long history of being open to the outside world, even moreso than either Beijing or Shanghai.  As a city far from China’s political centre, it’s a bit more freewheeling and loose.

The African community here has been estimated at between 100,000 and 200,000, but regardless of the figure their impact on the city has been immense.  We have told you before that airlines from Africa are stepping up direct flights between the continent and Guangzhou, while political and economic ties between the two regions strengthen further. Parts of Baiyun and Yuexiu districts have been renamed as “Chocolate City“. So what are the Africans doing here?  Many are involved in textiles and export products back to their home countries.  But one man has taken a different path.  Spartan Arinze was recently profiled by Public Radio International because he has launched a social networking site aimed at Africans living in China.

Arinze arrived in Guangzhou from Nigeria 10 years ago in search of the Chinese equivalent of the “American dream”.  He launched his social networking site, Gbooza!, after being inspired by reading the Huffington Post.  He says knew he wanted to do something to serve the legions of Africans in Guangzhou, and the many others spread out throughout China:

The site is part social network, part news aggregator and all focused on the Nigerian community in China.

“I cannot create a news website for Americans,” Arinze said. “I am Nigerian so I have to create something for my people. And being in China here, I want to create something that will benefit my people and benefit China. We feature Chinese news and we feature events of Nigerians in China too.

Gbooza is no Facebook yet. The site has about 2,000 members and gets around 5,000 pageviews a day. But Arinze is still dreaming big. His next plan: making gbooza.com the number one social news network in Africa.

Arinze called the decision to launch a social network the “biggest risk of my life”.

While Arinze is based in Guangzhou, the site is much more global in nature.  It features an Events section, a trading corner, and plenty of news related to Africa (with a particular penchant for grizzly crime stories).  News can be filtered by continent.

Arinze says he has big plans for Gbooza!

The site has about 2,000 members and gets around 5000 page views a day. But Arinze is still dreaming big. His next plan: making gbooza.com the number one social news network in Africa.

You can check out the website here.

The African carrier has stolen some of the limelight from China Southern Airlines, which was due to receive its first 787 ahead of Ethiopian in July.  So far, though it has made no announcements on its arrival, flight schedule or when fare-paying passengers can make reservations.

Guangzhou’s burgeoning “Little Africa” community concentrated in Yuexiu and Baiyun districts makes Guangzhou a prime destination for African carriers.  Furthermore, the decision for Ethiopian to utilise its new flagship plane on the route means capitalizing on the hundreds of billions of RMB being poured into Africa.

Ethiopian is the first airline to bring the revolutionary Dreamliner to the Pearl River Delta for regular passenger service.

The arrival of the 787 to Guangzhou is a huge coup for airport bosses, but it seen by some as a snub to its bigger, dominant rival the Hong Kong International Airport – which was originally in line to be serviced by the first round of Dreamliners.

But back on October 26 2011, the world’s first Dreamliner flight – an All Nippon Airways special charter – took off from Tokyo and landed in Hong Kong.  Boeing’s latest plane hasn’t been back since.

Source: Airline Route

Early morning March 11, a black Ferrari speeding down Yanjiang East Road spun out of control, coming to a stop upside the wall of the tram terminus building beneath Haiyin bridge, in Yuexiu district.

Fortunately for the tram operators, the night shift is lightly staffed, so no one was injured. The wall of the building sustained some minor scratches, but the grill of the Ferrari crumpled, leaving the car more or less totalled.

New Express quotes Luo, the tram office employee on duty at the time of the crash, as saying the Ferrari bounced through a fence before impacting with the building. Luo also told the newspaper this was the first car to meet its end upon his office wall in the 10 years he’s been working there.

A witness to the accident recalls seeing the car’s air bag pop out immediately upon impact, ejecting the driver and saving him from getting stuck inside the wreckage. The witness also said that the driver walked off to find himself some treatment at a nearby hospital.

Costs of repairing the car will reach at least six figures, said a spokesperson for the insurance company involved.

Click for more photos from the crash.