Several Chinese cities have provided air shelters for residents to escape the heat wave that has hit parts of the country, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees and killing chickens and pigs.
The temperatures inside some shelters, built to house people in the event of an air raid, are around 10 degrees cooler than outside, making them ideal places to study, play chess, practice ping pong or read books, according to the local press.
Two shelters in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in central China, will operate 12 hours a day until September. Six air-raid shelters, with a capacity to accommodate up to 2,000 people, in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang province, were equipped with free internet, drinks and heat stroke medicine.
Hangzhou has also designated specific areas within seven subway lines as rest areas, where chairs are provided for passengers to refresh themselves, according to ThePaper.cn newspaper.
In addition to Wuhan and Hangzhou, air-raid shelters are being used to shelter populations from extreme heat in Xi’an, in Shaanxi province, and Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province.
The China National Meteorological Center issued 43 high-temperature warnings this summer, including 27 yellow warnings and 16 orange warnings, the third and second highest levels, respectively.
The deaths of several animals were blamed on the extreme heat: a power outage at a farm in Harbin, in Heilongjiang province, killed 462 pigs. In Suizhou, Hubei province, a failure in the system that drives the fans caused the death of more than 4,000 chickens due to the extreme heat.
The arrival of the El Niño meteorological phenomenon caused an increase in temperatures worldwide. In July the ten hottest days were recorded worldwide since records have been kept.
Global warming and greenhouse gas emissions have also increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
Over the next 10 days, temperatures above 35 degrees are expected in southern Jiangnan, the Xinjiang basin, the Hexi region of Gansu province and western Inner Mongolia. Some areas can reach temperatures of up to 42 degrees.
The average global temperature topped 17 degrees for the first time on July 3 and remained above that level that week, according to data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction.
Source: TSF
