Eastern China suffers under worst heat wave in 140 years

Eastern China is suffering under a sweltering heat wave this week, with many areas reporting daily high temperatures over 40°C, and the extreme heat is being blamed for several deaths.

The centre of all this heat is right on China's east coast, over Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, where two of China's largest cities are — Hangzhou and Shanghai. Both cities broke temperature records this week, with Hangzhou reaching 40.5°C on both July 27th and 30th, beating the previous record of 40.3 degrees from 2003, and Shanghai got up to 40.6°C on July 26th, according to Weather Underground. That's apparently the highest temperature ever recorded there, since records began 140 years ago.

Dozens of deaths have apparently been reported, and it's so hot in some cities that people apparently took to frying eggs, bacon and even shrimp in skillets placed directly on manhole covers and pavement, as the temperatures of those surfaces rose to 60°C.

Even at night there has been little relief, as overnight lows still linger near 30 degrees, and people have had to look for novel ways to escape the heat. According to the South China Morning Post, hundreds of people disrupted subway service in the east coast city of Hangzhou last week, as they crowded into the Qiaosi underground terminal to enjoy the air conditioning. It got so bad, apparently, that when staff members at the station couldn't get the crowd to leave, they shut down power to the hallways from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., saying it was due to safety concerns.

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There was some relief from the heat earlier today, as rains moved into the area, according to Central China Television, but it isn't enough to call off the heat alerts just yet. A 'level 2' weather emergency is still in effect from the China Meteorological Administration, and the heat is expected to last until at least the middle of this month.

In a stark contrast to the heat wave, further down the coast, in Hainan province, west of Hong Kong, Tropical Storm Jebi is making landfall today, lashing the region with strong winds and heavy rainfall.

(Photo Courtesy: Peter Parks/Getty Images)

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