USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文双语Français
China
Home / China / China

Heat scorches 12 provinces

By Wang Qian in Beijing and Ji Jin in Chongqing | China Daily | Updated: 2013-06-20 07:37

Heat scorches 12 provinces

Students use an umbrella to stay cool in Suichuan county, Jiangxi province, where the temperature reached 38 C on Wednesday. Xiao Yuanpan / for China Daily

In a rare June heat wave, 12 provinces saw temperatures soar above 35 C on Wednesday while high temperature alerts were issued by the national weather forecaster.

The unusually warm weather was expected to continue in southern China through the week, but northern temperatures should decrease with rainfall expected on Friday, said He Lifu, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Center.

"The abnormally high temperatures are largely due to subtropical high pressures, which typically bring summertime heat to the middle and downstream regions of the Yangtze River," He said.

Temperatures reaching 37 C lingered in places including Shaanxi, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Guangdong on Wednesday, according to the weather center.

Chongqing had its hottest days of the year on Monday and Tuesday as temperatures passed 41 C, according to the local weather center.

The Chongqing education commission issued a notice on Monday to county and district level education bureaus allowing schools to close because of the heat - with government approval - and heavy outdoor activity was forbidden until temperatures fell.

"It's the first time the school closed in June because of hot weather. This usually happens in September," said Liu Gang, a 29-year-old primary school teacher in Chongqing.

But not all Chongqing students had time off because of heat. Some senior high schools held classes as usual.

"The classroom is as hot as a sauna!" complained Deng Yunxin, a sophomore at Chongshengqiao senior high school.

In Hunan province, the first orange heat alert of the year was issued on Wednesday morning, warning that temperatures were expected to pass 38 C before Thursday. An orange heat alert ranks the second highest on the country's heat warning chart.

In Wuhan, one of China's hottest cities, the civil affairs department is expected to invest 7.3 million yuan ($1.2 million) on running the city's 1,460 indoor shelters to help residents stay cool, Zhang Mingwu, deputy director of the department, said in People's Daily on Wednesday.

Every shelter will have at least one air conditioner, cold drinks, medicines for heat stroke, entertainment, sterilization facilities and firefighting devices, according to the bureau.

The free shelters will be opened whenever temperatures reach 35 C and above.

High temperatures drive up demand for electricity in many provinces.

Power demands in Hunan reached 300,000 megawatt-hours as homes and businesses turned up their air conditioners on Monday. The average daily demand peak is expected to reach 420,000 megawatt-hours this summer, according to Hunan Electric Power Corp.

Xue Zhenyu in Wuhan contributed to this story.

Editor's picks
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US