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Beijing: Army personnel and firefighters have been dispatched to fight bushfires in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, as the city and several provinces continue to be scorched by a record heatwave that has dried up rivers, withered crops and knocked out power supplies.
On Monday, forecasters issued a temperature “red alert” for the 11th day in a row and raised the national drought warning to “orange” — the second-highest level.
In addition to affecting agriculture, China’s worst heatwave in more than six decades has hampered industrial production in the southwest, with many manufacturing units shutting down jobs that move electricity to homes amid rising demand for electricity.
According to Chinese state media, more than 200 weather monitoring stations across the country have shown that temperatures have exceeded 40 degrees Celsius since August 1 in many places including Chongqing in southwest China and eastern Zhejiang and northwestern Shaanxi provinces that border Sichuan. .
The sprawling city of Chongqing was one of the worst-hit cities.
“More than 5,000 rescuers, including firefighters, armed forces, and professional rescue teams, and seven helicopters have been mobilized to put out the fire. More than 1,500 people have been evacuated to safety,” Xinhua, the official news agency, reported on Monday.
Sichuan province, which relies on hydroelectric power for about 80 percent of its energy supply, has been severely affected, not least because of the reduction in the amount of water flowing through the Yangtze.
“So far this year, less than 40 percent of the average annual rainfall has flowed into the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and since early August, the province’s hydropower reservoirs have dropped to half their normal levels, and power generation has dropped by more than 50 percent,” Caixin reported. .
That forced 84 million people across the province to lose power to businesses and homes, the report said.
The report added that Sichuan’s hydropower daily power generation fell 51.1 percent to 440 million kWh from the previous 900 million kWh.
The emergency response initiated by Sichuan requires that household electricity needs be met first, followed by industrial production.
“Measures to restrict electricity consumption by some industrial users have been extended until Thursday,” said CGTN, China’s official English-language broadcaster.
According to the China Meteorological Administration, the ongoing heat wave will gradually subside from August 26.
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