Aerial photo taken on June 28, 2022 shows a view of the Baihetan hydropower station, which straddles the provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan in southwest China. Tuesday marks the first anniversary of the operation of the first two generating units of the Baihetan hydropower station, a major project in China's west-east power transmission program. The station has a total installed capacity of 16 million kilowatts.(Photo: Xinhua)

 

Dazhou in Southwest China's Sichuan Province issued a new warning about high temperatures on Tuesday as it continues to be hit by extreme heat and power shortages. City authorities have ramped up efforts in seeking to bolster power supply to ensure residents' basic living standards. 

China is now suffering from the strongest heat wave in six decades, and Dazhou, a city that is home to more than 5.3 million people, has seen particularly high temperatures. The heat reached up to 43 C on Tuesday, the highest on local meteorological records since 1953. 

The extreme weather is also testing Dazhou's power generation capacity. Some counties and rural areas have suffered prolonged and irregular power outages, which has affected both the lives of local residents and business production. 

"In the continuous high temperatures, the contradiction between power supply and demand is prominent, and the problem is very serious," said Yan Weidong, mayor of Dazhou, at a press conference on Monday.

He asked authorities to further increase efforts to actively seek outside support for power supply. 

All electric billboards in the city were ordered to shut down, along with light boxes outside shops and street lighting, according to the meeting. 

Yan also emphasized the need to ensure fairness of power supply across the city with a precise subdivision of electricity usage by period and region. 

Complaints and dissatisfaction have been voiced by local residents over the power shortage. Relevant topics on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media, have received 170 million views as of press time. 

"The city has been without power for 6-7 hours a day in the last week. Many people could not fall asleep at night due to the hot weather so they came out on to the street or bridges to cool themselves down," a Dazhou resident surnamed Huang told the Global Times on Tuesday. 

Huang said his milk tea shop was also temporally closed due to the lack of electricity. 

According to a plan for electricity saving that Dazhou authorities issued on Saturday, 98 high-load energy enterprises in the city had all stopped production, with only the security load retained. 

Real estate, transportation, water conservancy, railway and other projects under construction have been suspended and bars, KTV and other public entertainment venues have also suspended their business. 

Power shortages have been a problem for many areas across the country recently, notably in Sichuan and its neighboring city Chongqing, due to the extremely hot weather. More than 200 meteorological monitoring stations across the country showed temperatures exceeding 40 C in places including East China's Zhejiang and Northwest China's Shaanxi since August 1, media reports said.