China faces heatwave havoc on power, crops and livestock

Anglers fish in the drying up Jialing river, a tributary of the Yangtze River in Chongqing Wednesday. Pic/AFP

Extreme heat in China played havoc on Wednesday despite lower temperatures in some regions, with authorities across the Yangtze river basin scrambling to limit the damage from climate change on power, crops and livestock.

China's heatwave, stretching past 70 days, is its longest and most widespread on record, with around 30 per cent of the 600 weather stations along the Yangtze recording their highest temperatures ever by last Friday. The southwestern region of Chongqing has been hit especially hard, with one resident, Zhang Ronghai, saying that both his water and his power had been cut after a four-day mountain fire in the district of Jiangjin. "People need to go to a power centre over 10 km (6 miles) away to charge their phones," Zhang said.

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On Wednesday, images shared on China's Twitter-like Weibo service showed residents and volunteers in Chongqing and Sichuan struggling even passing out in intense heat during mandatory COVID-19 tests. Chongqing's agriculture bureau also drew up emergency measures to protect livestock at more than 5,000 large-scale pig farms, which have faced "severe challenges" as a result of the heat, state media said. Damage to crops and water scarcity could "spread to other food-related sectors, resulting in substantial price increase or food crisis in the most severe case", said Lin Zhong, professor at City University of Hong Kong who has studied the impact of climate change on agriculture in China.

The National Meteorological Centre downgraded its national heat warning to "orange" on Wednesday after 12 consecutive days of "red alerts", but temperatures are expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in Chongqing, Sichuan and other parts of the Yangtze basin. One weather station in Sichuan recorded temperature of 43.9 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, the highest ever in the province, official forecasters said on their Weibo channel.

43.9
Degrees Celsius temperature recorded in Sichuan Wednesday

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