After more than 70 days of extreme temperatures and low rainfall, China has seen its worst drought on record. Southern China has recorded its longest period of drought since records began, 60 years ago. The country is now using cloud seeding to try and change the amount of precipitation that falls. BBC
HONG KONG — Car assembly plants and electronics factories in southwestern China have closed for lack of power. Owners of electric cars are waiting overnight at charging stations to recharge their vehicles. Rivers are so low there that ships can no longer carry supplies. A record-setting drought and an 11-week heat wave are causing broad disruption in a region that depends on dams for more than three-quarters of its electricity generation. The factory shutdowns and logistical delays are hindering China’s efforts to revive its economy as the country’s leader, Xi…
Residents of the south-western Chinese city of Chongqing have been queueing on the streets to be tested for Covid, despite extreme temperatures that have soared past 40C (104F) this week. Photos posted on Chinese social media also showed health workers testing residents while wearing full hazmat suits in the heatwave. Other images showed that the tests were being carried out while bushfires raged in the background, prompting descriptions of the situation as “apocalyptic”. The city of more than 31 million people reported eight new confirmed Covid cases on Friday. Authorities…
The dugong, a species of so-called sea cow that roams the ocean floor in Asia and Africa and is said to have inspired ancient legends of mermaids, has been spotted off China’s southern coast for centuries. Not lately, though. A new study suggests that the dugong has become the first large vertebrate to go functionally extinct in China’s coastal waters, the result of a rapid population collapse there that began in the mid-1970s. “Functional extinction” means that even if some dugongs are still alive off China’s coast, their numbers are…
A United States coast guard vessel was unable to enter Solomon Islands for a routine port call because its government did not respond to a request to refuel and provision, a US official said. The Solomons government did not immediately answer a Reuters request for comment. It has had a tense relationship with the US and its allies since striking a security pact with China in May. The USCGC Oliver Henry was on patrol for illegal fishing in the South Pacific for a regional fisheries agency when it failed to…