China has issued its year’s first national drought alert on Thursday as the country battles a months-long drought, forest fires and an unprecedented heatwave putting crops at risk across the Yangtze river basin.
The alert came after the heat wave across the region, from Sichuan in the southwest to Shanghai in the Yangtze delta, lasted for an astonishing 70 days while southern parts of China in particular saw the longest continuous period of high temperatures since records began 60 years ago.
Major effects of Heatwave
According to the stats, the scorching heatwave has lead to scarce rainfall and persistent high temperatures along with drying up of water reservoirs across southern China, including;
- The Poyang Lake, one of the Yangtze’s important flood basins in central China’s Jiangxi province, has now shrunk to a quarter of its normal size for this time of year.
- As many as 66 rivers across 34 counties in the southwestern region of Chongqing have dried up
- Rainfall in Chongqing this year is down 60% compared to the seasonal norm
- The district of Beibei, north of Chongqing’s urban center, saw temperatures hit 45 degrees Celsius on Thursday.
- Vital food crops are also at risk with four government agencies issuing a joint emergency statement on Tuesday, warning that the autumn harvest was under “severe threat”.
- Falling water levels have even revealed three Buddhist statues on a submerged island that are believed to be 600 years old.
Floods across Northern China
While Southern China is facing extreme heatwaves and drought, northern China is under the impact of heavy rainfalls, triggering flash floods across the region.
The casualties from a mountain torrent caused by torrential rains in northwest China’s Qinghai Province have risen to 26, with another five people still missing.
China has earmarked 50 million yuan (7.3 million U.S. dollars) from the central natural-disaster relief fund to support the rescue and recovery work.