China has experienced hottest August in over half a century, with major cities like Shanghai experiencing record-breaking temperatures making this summer worst in recent decades.
China's average temperature in August stood at 22.3 degrees Celsius, 1.3 degrees Celsius higher than the average level in previous years, China Meteorological Administration spokesperson Chen Zhenlin said.
Shanghai, China's biggest city with over 20 million people, experienced some of the hottest days in history with temperatures soaring up to 40.8 degrees Celsius, the highest ever recorded since the business hub's meteorological records began 140 years ago.
This prompted authorities to sound red alert many times with about ten people killed in the last two months due to heat wave, officials said.
Central China's Hunan Province and southwestern Chongqing Municipality have each reported three deaths this summer.
Areas spreading from the Yellow River and Huaihe River to parts of southern China, all have posted remarkably high temperatures of 2 to 4 degrees Celsius above normal.
Chinese meteorologists have attributed the extremely hot weather to a number of factors, including strong and stable subtropical high pressure, the absence of typhoons and global warming.
However, temperatures in most part of the country has come down during the past few days with heavy rains in different places.
