Searing heatwaves hammer millions

Sweaty summer: A woman using an umbrella to stay cooler on a street amid a heatwave warning in Shanghai. — Reuters

BEIJING: Searing heatwaves swept across the vast Yangtze River basin yesterday, hammering densely populated megacities from the country’s commercial hub Shanghai on the coast to Chengdu deep in the country’s heartlands.

More than 90 red alerts, the most severe in a three-rung warning system, were active across China as at 2.30pm, most of which in the Yangtze basin, which spans nearly 2,000km.