There are more missing adults than children or the elderly on the Chinese mainland according to a report released by a people-finding platform launched by Chinese news aggregator Jinri Toutiao. 

A total 32,121 adults aged 18-59 have been reported missing to the platform, or 43.39 percent, followed by seniors, 80 or older, with a percentage of 40.58. 

Juveniles, the group that attracts most concern from the public, occupy the smallest percentage of 16.03.

The public welfare platform has helped more than 10,000 families find missing relatives, Jinri Toutiao Deputy Chief Editor Xu Yilong explained at a press conference on Wednesday. 

Chinese mobile apps include the platform that was launched in February 2016. 

People can post information including location and characteristics of their missing families or relatives on the platform, and the platform will send notifications immediately to app users near the location.

Xu also released a report on missing people, based on more than 70,000 pieces of information uploaded to the platform in the past three years.

The report showed that in the last three years through 74,042 pieces of information posted on the platform, 42,198 missing people were found. 

Xu cited nine critical conclusions on finding the missing: The first 72 hours is the golden time to find most of them. Half are people suffering from Alzheimer's. Finding a depressed patient can save their life.

Mental illness is the main reason for missing people, Xu said. More than 53.5 percent of missing adults suffered from a mental illness and 40.3 percent of lost seniors were Alzheimer's sufferers. 

Since the missing elderly were largely dysfunctional in terms of memory, language and cognition, it was more difficult for them to find their way home.

With regard to this problem, Jinri Toutiao launched another project in January to give old people free bracelets with a global positioning chip. 

As of July, the bracelet had helped 37 seniors return home out of 48 reported missing cases, a success rate of 77 percent, he said.

The report also said that more than 74.9 percent of missing people can be found within the first 72 hours. 

Patients suffering from depression were more urgent to find than other groups, the report noted. 

They had both the highest death rate and highest success rate at finding of all missing persons.

"Helping these people come back home is not only helping reunite a family but also saving a person that could possibly die," Xu said.

Zeng Hua, who works on Jinri Toutiao's people-finding program, said the company has also been cooperating with salvage service agencies of the civil affair departments, the public security department, media and volunteers to establish a database of missing people in addition to push notifications for them.

At the end of the conference, Jinri Toutiao announced an expanded list of 23 cooperation partners including mobile apps and media such as grocery delivery company Dada-JD Daojia, China's largest classified information website 58.com, Beijing Daily and provincial-level traffic radio stations.

Global Times