Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - On Tuesday, blistering heat and contrasting unrelenting rains wreaked havoc in several Chinese towns, br...
 |
| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - On Tuesday, blistering heat and contrasting unrelenting rains wreaked havoc in several Chinese towns, breaking new records for high temperatures. Local forecasts anticipate the weather extremes to last for days.
Tuesday saw the distribution of red alerts, the strongest of a three-tier warning system, and cities took action to protect residents from the sweltering heat, which surpassed records for the month of July in sections of eastern Jiangsu province and the nearby metropolis of Shanghai.
The China Meteorological Administration reported on Wednesday that temperatures in the Jiangsu city of Yixing reached a new record-high of 41.3 degrees Celsius (106.3 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.
2.45 million people viewed the social media post with the hashtag #Heatstroke on Weibo, where discussions ranged from why individuals were being sent to hospitals to the harmful effects of prolonged heat exposure.
A user on Weibo declared, "This year's weather is unusually hot and odd; it has been above 30 degrees Celsius for two months!"
Experts attribute the odd weather to global climate change.
Parts of the provinces of Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, and Anhui, as well as the cities of Chongqing and Shanghai, had record-breaking high temperatures on Tuesday, ranging from 37 to 39 degrees Celsius.
Particularly, the cities of Zhaotong, Shaoxing, Ningbo, Jiaxing, and Huzhou in Zhejiang, as well as Changzhou and Wuxi in Jiangsu, experienced temperatures between 40 and 42 degrees Celsius.
Meanwhile, sections of the provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Shandong, Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Inner Mongolia were hammered by torrential rain.
Over the following few days, the extreme heat and rain are expected to last.
