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" Law enforcement officers with the Urban Management Bureau of Dongcheng District direct workers to backfill a huge basement in Beijing on Nov. 26 scarpe nike air max 95 , 2015. (PhotoBj.people)
Workers have started to backfill a huge basement illegally dug under a private residence about three km from Beijing's Forbidden City.


The unauthorized basement of the house in Beiluoguxiang Hutong has three floors with a total space of over 700 square meters. The deepest part is 10 meters underground.


A law enforcement officer with the Urban Management Bureau of Dongcheng District said the backfilling is being paid for at an estimated cost of one million yuan (about 156,000 U.S. dollars) by the property's owner, who dug the basement.


Beiluoguxiang Hutong is very narrow, preventing trucks from entering and meaning workers must use carts to fetch filling materials. So the work is slow and may last for a month and a half. It has inconvenienced the neighborhood.


The law enforcement officer said private underground construction is illegal and should be punished. The unsophisticated digging and construction of the basement has caused cracks in the walls and surrounding road.


The owner surnamed Li told investigators that he had planned to use the basement as a parking space for a car rental business.


Beijing has seen lots of illegal underground construction.


Earlier this year, a lawmaker built an 18-meter-deep basement in his courtyard in downtown Beijing without permission. The basement caved in and caused the road and surrounding buildings to collapse.


Following the incident, radar was used to detect unauthorized basements throughout Beijing as the city seeks to eliminate the dangerous practice.

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FLASH: OVER 30 PEOPLE INJURED IN A DEADLY CAR CRASH IN LAS VEGAS --REPORTS

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BEIJING, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Before Javaria Ikram even arrived in China, the Pakistani woman had heard a lot about the country from her father.


"China is my father's second home," she said. "We grew up seeing photos and hearing stories about it."


Ul Haq Ikram was among the first group of Pakistanis to study in China in the 1970s.


From 1974 to 1979, he studied Chinese and radio communications at Beijing Language and Culture University and Tianjin University. He then returned home and became an engineer in the military. In 2005, he came to China again, this time earning his doctorate at Beijing Institute of Technology.


Ul Haq Ikram has travelled around the country with his family, and encouraged his six children to study there.


"The peaceful environment and friendship between our two countries are the main reasons why we like China," said Ul Haq Ikram. "I enjoyed the academic atmosphere here, the teachers made our studies and daily life easy."


Javaria Ikram, 30, and her siblings all followed in the footsteps of their father. Elder sister Maria Ikram came first, earning her doctorate at Beijing Institute of Technology.


"Before arriving, I had been told Chinese are quite industrious," Maria Ikram said. "It is true. They work very, very hard."


When she arrived in 2005, Beijing had only several metro lines. "Now underground covers the whole city," she said.


Javaria Ikram came in 2008, and will complete her doctorate this June.


She told Xinhua that when she arrived, she could barely understand Chinese. "Sitting in class, I had no idea what the teacher was talking about," she said.


When Javaria Ikram told her teacher that she could not read Chinese characters, the teacher gave her an English version the next day.


"I gradually gained confidence," she said. "I will never forget this experience."


The sisters' husbands also studied in China. Both Maria Ikram and her husband Abdul Waheed are now professors at Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication. Javaria Ikram's husband Syed Hammad Hussain Shan Bokhari works for a Beijing company developing automotive electronic equipment. Javaria Ikram hopes to find a job as well.


"We would like to be a bridge for exchange between China and Pakistan," she said.


"In the past, young Pakistanis liked to study Arabic, French and German. Learning Chinese is a new trend," she said.


Chinese language courses for foreigners are now available in many colleges and even primary schools in China. The booming economy has attracted an increasing number of foreign students, and like the Ikram family, many have benefited from Chinese government scholarships.


In 2016, more than 440,000 foreign students from 205 countries and regions studied in China, according to statistics with the Ministry of Education.


According to plan, China will set up a Silk Road scholarship, allowing 10,000 foreign students from countries along the Belt and Road to study in China each year.


With the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will be developed, creating a lot of job opportunities for technicians, especially those who have studied in China, Javaria Ikram said.


She hopes the corridor will improve the economic and living conditions in Pakistan.


"Blackouts often occur in Islamabad due to power supply shortages," she said.


The cooperation mechanism will carry out many infrastructure and cultural projects, which will improve the quality of life in her hometown, Javaria Ikram said.




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