A heat wave of an intensity and persistence unprecedented in decades continues to hit central Chinaa country that issued its maximum alert for high temperatures on Monday for the eleventh consecutive day, local media collect.
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The heat affects with special virulence the provinces of the center and east of the Asian giant and the basin of the Yangtze River, the longest in China and the third in the world and which runs through the center of the country.
Since August 1, more than 200 weather stations located in places such as Zhejiang (east), Chongqing (center), Sichuan (center) and Shaanxi (center) have recorded temperatures above 40 degrees, reports the local newspaper Global Times.
Since July, rainfall in the Yangtze River Basin has been 40% lower than the same period a year earlier, marking the lowest since 1961.
Sichuan, the Chinese city most affected by heat wave
Sichuan province, with an area slightly larger than Sweden and home to 84 million people, is experiencing the most extreme heat wave and the least amount of rainfall since records exist, according to local media, a situation that is aggravated because the region depends on hydroelectric production to generate 80% of its energy.
Sichuan began suspending activity at numerous factories last week due to rising energy demand and production unable to meet it, and local authorities have urged residents to limit electricity consumption and use of air conditioning.
Other Chinese regions have sent 50 emergency generator vehicles to Sichuan to alleviate power shortages.
A woman walks down the street on a hot day in Shanghai, China.
EFE/EPA/ALEX PLAVEVSKI
The national authorities insist that the situation of last year will not be repeated, when industrial production in some important manufacturing centers of the country was interrupted by the shortage of supply, which came to translate into blackouts in residential areas in some areas of the northeast.
“China will never allow large-scale power outage incidents to happen again,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said a few months ago.
Effect on China’s crops and outbreak of fires
The lack of rainfall is also affecting agriculture: mid-August is a “key” period for some crops in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, so the current drought “will reduce the harvest of soybeans and corn, among others” Sun Shao, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, told local media.
In the central province of Hubei, crossed by the Yangtze, around 220,000 people have had difficulties in accessing drinking water in recent days and at least 690,000 hectares of farmland have been damaged as a result of the drought, according to official data. .
![river in china](https://www.eltiempo.com/images/1x1.png)
River in China affected by intense heat wave.
China will never allow large-scale power outage incidents to happen again
The drought, which has caused provincial capitals such as Nanjing (east) or Nanchang (center) not to see a drop of precipitation this August, has left scars like people in Chongqing (center) crossing the usually mighty Jialing River by motorcycle, whose The bed has been exposed to the drop in the water level, or the unveiling of 600-year-old Buddhist sculptures until now covered by water in that same city.
Also, the dryness has caused fires in mountainous areas of Chongqing that have resulted in the evacuation of more than 1,500 people after the intervention of more than 5,000 members of rescue forces, firefighters and soldiers.
The drought will continue to worsen over the next 10 days, according to Sun, adding that it could even last for more days “in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze.”
Local meteorologist Chen Lijuan recently explained that periods of intense heat, which start “earlier and end later,” could become the “new normal” in the Asian country under “the effect of climate change.”
EFE
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