A massive drought, coupled with record high temperatures, is wreaking havoc on China’s economy, causing the country to shut down factories and endure rolling blackouts.
China’s Sichuan Province, one of the most populous and fastest-growing industrial centers in the country, has been stricken by a severe drought that has meant little rain to power hydroelectric dams that typically generate three-quarters of the area’s electricity that is sent to cities as far as Shanghai, The New York Times reported this week.
The lack of rain, which is being exacerbated by scorching temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit, has left rivers with unusually low water levels. This shortage has prevented the dams from providing enough electricity to support the Sichuan Province. As a result, factories in the area have been forced to close, sometimes for a week at a time.
In addition to shutting down factories, the power shortage has also caused rolling blackouts in some areas downstream from the Sichuan Province in places like the city of Chongqing and adjacent Hubei Province.
“Part of the issue here is that China has a broader water shortage,” Dean Cheng, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, told Fox News Digital. “Entire river systems in China have gone dry. The Chinese are redirecting rivers from the south to the northern plains of China which includes Beijing because the rivers up there are running dry.”
Rainfall in the Yangtze basin has been around 45% lower than normal since July, and high temperatures are likely to persist for at least another week, official forecasts said. As many as 66 rivers across 34 counties in Chongqing have dried up, state broadcaster CCTV said on Friday. (Fox News)
