BEIJING: Swathes of eastern China baked under a scorching heat wave on Saturday, with temperatures in some areas reaching record highs, weather authorities said.

China is enduring a summer of extreme weather, with unseasonable heat searing parts of the north and east while torrential rains have triggered floods and landslides in central and southern regions.

The country is the world’s largest emitter of the greenhouse gases that scientists say drive global warming and make extreme weather more frequent and intense. The mercury rose to 41.9°C in the eastern city of Hangzhou at around 2:30pm on Saturday, according to a report on the weather office’s online news portal.

The figure “broke the record for the (city’s) highest air temperature in the history of observation”, the report said. The previous record was 41.8°C in August 2022.

Hangzhou, the capital of the wealthy Zhejiang province, is home to 12.5 million people and is known as a major technology hub.

Social media users remarked on the stifling heat, with one commenting: “I feel like I’m about to melt.”

“Who still thinks Hangzhou’s a desirable place to live?” quipped another on the popular Weibo platform.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2024