Pictures of the year 2021: China news

A snow removing machine, with workers on board, slowly pulls out of the garage of the Tiechanggou repairing team in Emin, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Jan. 21, 2021. Maytas, dubbed "Hell of Wind," is a wild area where the Karamay-Tacheng railway in Xinjiang runs through. It is also a place where the Tiechanggou repairing team under the China Railway Urumqi Bureau Group Co., Ltd. is on the watch 24 hours a day to ensure safe operation of all trains passing by. (Xinhua/Hu Huhu)

A giant panda cub plays at Qinling Giant Panda Research Center in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Jan. 22, 2021. (Xinhua/Zhang Bowen)

Lu Shengmei (L) performs a free medical treatment to villager Qiao Aifen, who is confined to bed due to paralysis inside her cave dwelling, in Hejiagou Village of Jiaxian County, Yulin City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Jan. 18, 2021. In the year of 1968, Lu graduated from a medical college in Beijing and chose to work in the remote Jiaxian. She had worked in the county until she got retired in 1999. Since then, she has kept offering free treatment to local people. (Xinhua/Tao Ming)

A Bryde's whale forages in waters off Weizhou Island in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Jan. 15, 2021. (Xinhua/Liu Jinhai)

People visit the Huaqiangbei Museum in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Jan. 7, 2021. Huaqiangbei is a renowned commercial area in Shenzhen for electronics markets. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)

A train dispatcher works at the Xilinhot station in Xilinhot of Xilingol League, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Jan. 8, 2021. The lowest temperature reached minus 30 degrees Celsius in Xilinhot on the day. (Xinhua/Peng Yuan)

Volunteers push a tricycle on a slope to deliver daily necessities to students' dormitories on the campus of Dalian Ocean University under closed-off management for COVID-19 control, in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Jan. 6, 2021. (Dalian Ocean University/Handout via Xinhua)