On the podium of the hottest Chinese cities in recent days, the municipality-province of Chongqing (southwest), where 31 million people live, continued to suffer Thursday.
While the thermometer reads 41.9°C, many residents are looking for a bit of freshness in shopping centers or the metro.
Sitting on makeshift seats, some play cards to pass the time. Others lie on the ground, exhausted by the heat.
On social networks, some complained about having to queue in the middle of a heat wave to be tested, after an epidemic rebound of Covid-19 in the huge metropolis.
Midsummer heat waves are not unusual in China, especially in the arid west and south of the country.
But the country is facing extreme weather this year, exacerbated by global warming, scientists say.
It thus experiences its hottest summer since the beginning of its meteorological records more than 60 years ago. A situation unprecedented in its duration – more than 70 days of high temperatures – but also in its magnitude.
– Drought in Tibet –
Several major cities have recorded the hottest days in their history and, due to lack of precipitation, many rivers have dried up, like the largest river in the country, the Yangtze.
These climatic conditions jeopardize the harvests and weaken the electricity network, at a time when millions of inhabitants are turning on their air conditioning.
The drought is now affecting half of China’s territory to varying degrees, according to a map released Wednesday by the national meteorological service.
Whole swathes of the country are affected, with in particular a wide strip that encompasses the southern part of the autonomous region of Tibet (west), which is very mountainous, and extends towards the coastal regions to the east, the economic lung of China. .
This vast area, which has a total of more than 370 million inhabitants, mainly follows the route of the Yangtze River, a precious source of drinking water.
Some parts of Tibet are among the drought zones qualified as “severe” or “exceptional” by the national meteorology.
In Sichuan (southwest), where a locality had reached 44 degrees on Wednesday, heavy rains however locally refreshed the atmosphere of this mountainous region.
For safety, nearly 30,000 people had to be evacuated, public television CCTV reported on Thursday.
– Cyclone –
Last week, flash floods hit northwest China and killed 26 people.
At the other end of the country on Thursday, cyclone Ma-on swept through southern China.
This heat wave represents a challenge for agriculture, in a country which is already in normal times in deficit of arable land.
Drought is particularly problematic for rice and soybean crops, which are very water-intensive.
In this context, the government decided on Wednesday to release a special envelope of 10 billion yuan (nearly 1.5 billion euros) to support farmers in the face of drought, according to CCTV.
This sum will mainly be used to ensure the rice harvests in the fall.
Chongqing authorities have pledged to take emergency measures to protect pig farms, while on the internet, the video of a farmer from Sichuan, in tears after the death of her chickens due to the heat wave and power outages, has gone viral.
The drying up of the rivers that feed the hydraulic dams also forces the authorities to locally ration electricity, particularly in Sichuan where the 84 million inhabitants depend 80% on this source of energy.
