China: Heat waves affect millions of residents – More than 90 “red” alerts

Waves heatwave hit areas in the Yangtze River Basin today in Chinaaffecting densely populated megacities from Shanghai on the Chinese coast to Chengdu inland.

Over 90 “red” warnings, the highest among the three alert levels, were active across China this morning. Most of them concerned the Yangtze basin.

Shanghai, the financial one China’s capital, issued its second “red” alert in four days, warning of temperatures that surpass them 40 degrees Celsius. Construction work and other outdoor activities must be limited or stopped altogether when a “red” alert is issued, historically a very rare occurrence for the city of 25 million people.

THE China is preparing for a summer this year extreme weather events, from heatwaves to prolonged rains. Cities south of the Yangtze in particular have been hit by high temperatures and record rainfall.

“The summer in Nanjing has never been hotter than it is this year compared to previous years,” said a 77-year-old retiree in the city, which is near Shanghai and is home to more than 9 million people. “The sun burns most of the day.”

As reported by the Athens News Agency, the hashtag #heatstroke circulated on social media with 2.45 million views on the Weibo platform, in discussions ranging from civilian hospital admissions to the problems of prolonged exposure to heat.

Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai, issued 51 “red” alerts in one day, with local media reporting residents being admitted to hospitals with symptoms heat stroke or even lose their lives.

In Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, the planned power outage and the network upgrade coincided with high temperatures, prompting protests from some of the 21 million residents on social media. “It’s a large-scale blackout,” said a Weibo user. “They cannot guarantee the supply of energy to the residents. Nobody is doing anything about it.”

In the city of Yangjin, also in the southwestern part of China, temperatures reached their Monday 44 degrees Celsiusthe highest level since records began in 1959, state television reported late yesterday.

In Henan province, railway workers were cleaning and checking air conditioning systems on the roofs of trains passing through its capital, Zhengzhou. Wang Mian, a railway worker, said the hottest temperature he had experienced while on a train roof was 79 degrees Celsius. “It’s very hot up there, it’s like a steam cooker,” he told state television. “Our clothes are soaked every day. Sometimes, they just don’t dry.”