More than 90 red alerts for high heat were triggered Wednesday in China, with temperature records in several megalopolises in the center and south of the country.
With our correspondent in Beijing, Stephane Lagarde
Construction sites and outdoor activities are halted in Shanghai, and this time it’s not for the Covid, but for the extreme temperatures crushing the Yangtze River basin. 40.9 degrees Celsius were recorded this afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in Shanghai. Shanghainese hadn’t seen this since the weather forecast was introduced in 1873! It will be ten days this Thursday that the economic capital is confronted with high heat, a situation which should last until this weekend, according to Wu Rui, the director of the local meteorological office.
Record heat also in Yanjin with 44°C recorded on Monday: the thermometer had never gone so high since 1959. 41.3°C in Chongqing.
#hotshot
In Chengdu, still to the southwest, residents could not even take shelter behind air conditioners, due to a power outage. A patient died in hospital from heat stroke, reports the GlobalTimes. On the networks, the hashtag #热射病 (“heat stroke”) has more than 660 million views, with tips for staying hydrated and staying out of the sun.
?️ Mercury is also on the rise in China. Several Chinese megalopolises experienced heat records this Wednesday, in the south and center of the country. … With the humidity, I’m not telling you how it felt.? https://t.co/IVAAZXq6YN
— Stephane Lagarde (@StephaneLagarde) July 13, 2022
Song of the crickets in Beijing which has seen the return of white clothes and light veils on the faces of the inhabitants. The surge in mercury gives the impression of living inside a pressure cooker, said a weibonaut cook on Wednesday. Enough to give rise to filmed experiences of a fried egg cooked on the bonnet of a car or on a table in the open air.