The unexpected early arrival of heatwaves throughout China this year has brought about nationwide power and water shortage, posing a stern challenge to China's economy.

In the first 10 days of July, the Chinese Central Meteorological Station forecast shows that high temperature, at least 35 degrees Celsius, will prevail in most parts of China.

Temperature in some regions is likely to top 40 degrees Celsius.

The hottest areas will include north China, where Beijing, China's Capital, and several important economic centers are located, the major part of south China, regions along the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers and part of southwest China.

China's economic hub, Shanghai, experienced its hottest days in the past 70 years when the temperature hit 39 degrees Celsius on Sunday. The municipality consecutively issued three "black warning signals", the top disaster-warning level.

Residents in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, have been suffering temperatures of above 35 degrees Celsius for ten days in succession since late June, which has never happened since the city began keeping meteorological records in 1907.

The unusually unremitting high temperatures posed a direct challenge to China's power supply system.

The maximum customers' load in Shanghai reached 15.81 million kilowatts on July 1, 810,000 kw more than the record of last year.

Power consumption in Shanghai renewed its record three times in a week. The local power grid said power supply had already reached the top capacity.

In nearby Anhui Province, water shortage and continuous overload operation have severely affected power supply, resulting in a decrease of 1.13 million kw in electricity generation.

The province was forced to launch the "orange level warning" for power supply and set a limit on consumption of big power consumers. Sources with the State Electricity Dispatching Center said this summer's power shortage will be much more serious than last year.

The customer's load in eastern and northern parts of China has surpassed the peak amount of 2004, with the biggest gap reaching 14 million and 3 million kw, respectively.

Many experts attribute the power shortage to the skyrocketing economy, especially high-power-consuming industries.

The unbalanced power source structure is also blamed for the crisis. Experts think thermal power makes up a larger proportion than it should in the structure. Consequently, the shortage of coal will immediately lead to a terrible power generation breakdown.

The power limitation policies apparently affect the economic results of many industries.

In Anhui, the Jianghuai Automobile Company has to ask workers to work at night due to frequent power cut-off, which lasts for as long as 12 hours a day.

A company official said the limitation of power supply had greatly hit its production and delivery plans, causing great losses.

The high temperatures have also worsened the serious droughts in parts of the east, west and central China, impacting the agriculture in these regions.

Farmers have had to postpone the time for the autumn sowing, which should be done after the summer harvesting. They are worried about missing the right season.

In Anhui, 12.45 million mu (about 840,000 hectares) of crops are now reported withered in the droughts, in which more than 2 million mu (about 133,000 hectares) are threatened to be fruitless.

In the province's west part, many residents and livestock suffer from a shortage of drinking water.

"I planned to plant 20 mu (about 1.3 hectares) of rice, but I can only plant five or six mu (about 0.4 hectares) now because there's not enough irrigating water," said Zhang Tie, a farmer from the province' county of Changfeng.

He added with great anxiety that even these five or six mu of rice shoots were planted one month later than usual.

The unprecedented early arrival of high temperatures is bringing one challenge after anther to China's economy.

Many cities suffer water shortages to different extents. The construction of some key projects can not be completed on schedule. The high temperatures also incur fire and traffic accidents.

To pull it out, governments at all levels in China are launching some special and urgent measures.

Zhao Yuzhu, deputy head of the State Electricity Dispatching and Telecommunication Center, said the State Power Grid Company is making efforts to guarantee the power supply this summer.

The official said the State Power Grid will strengthen the power regulation across regions and provinces, coordinate and allocate supply according to needs, implement production-accident-prevention measures and enhance the overall capacity of electricity transmission. Additionally, China will speed up power supply reform, urge local governments to carry out the distinguishing of electricity prices at different times of the day, control the power consumption increases of big enterprises.

Zhao said the Chinese government will reform and standardize the market of coal for electricity generation use to fundamentally solve the contradiction between the soaring power consumption and insufficient coal supply.

In the face of the droughts, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters have issued documents urging all local departments to quicken the renovation of the current water supply and irrigation facilities.

The departments of city water supply, traffic and fire fighting all went into action to take all possible measures to safeguard the economic construction.

China's Ministry of Construction asked all the departments responsible for construction work to take proper measures to prevent the workers from heatstrokes and to guarantee their holiday time especially in the high temperatures.

The government of Jinan, capital of the eastern Shandong Province, which suffered days with 40 degrees Celsius, has issued a regulation saying that students will stop their classes and workers will halt their outdoor operations if temperatures go above 37 degrees Celsius. Professor Wang Zhongwu, a sociologist at Shandong University, said that in the past Chinese stuck to their positions in high temperatures in order to show their strong wills.

He said he is glad to see such a humanizing change, praising the government of its awareness of people's health and life.

Source: Xinhua