China’s record heatwave, worst drought in decades

In the summer of 2022, China was hit by its most severe heatwave in six decades, exacerbating a drought that has impacted food and factory production, power supplies and transport in a vast area of the country. The Yangtze River Basin, which stretches from coastal Shanghai to Sichuan province in China’s southwest and includes Asia’s longest river, was considered the worst-affected area, with hundreds of millions of people impacted. Experts say the heatwave could be among the worst recorded in global history.