BEIJING, July 7 ------ Employers in Beijing were ordered on Thursday by the government to stop outdoor work after scorching summer heat in China's capital was forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
Government departments were ordered to ensure the elderly and ill could stay cool after the city of 22 million people issued a "red alert," the highest level of a warning system for extreme temperatures. The government reported on Monday that Beijing recorded 10 days of temperatures above 35 C (95 F), the longest streak of its kind since 1961. And the temperature at the Nanjiao meteorological station in southern Beijing soared to 40.9 C on Wednesday, said He Na, chief forecaster of the municipality's weather observatory. "Relevant departments and units shall take emergency measures for heatstroke prevention and cooling," a Beijing government notice said. It told employers to "stop outdoor operations."
Temperatures in the capital will continue to be high from Thursday to Friday, forecasts said. This comes as flooding has forced thousands of people to flee their homes in southern China. The government on Wednesday issued an alert for possible flash flooding in Inner Mongolia in the north, Heilongjiang in the northeast, and Tibet and Sichuan in the southwest.
People are enduring torrid temperatures across much of the globe. The Earth's average temperature remained at a record high Wednesday, after two days in which the planet reached unofficial records. It's the latest marker in a series of climate-change-driven extremes.
Source: manilatimes.net
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