Authorities ordered more than 10 million people in the city’s central urban districts to undergo mandatory Covid tests on Wednesday, when the highest temperature in Chongqing soared to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Over 3,800 temporary test sites were set up in all central districts. Photos on Chinese social media showed residents forming long queues at the sites, with some fainting in the intense heat. A widely circulated video shows a street lined with hundreds of people apparently queuing for Covid tests, most wearing face masks and some fanning themselves to relieve the heat. In the background, plumes of smoke from wildfires rise above the pale orange horizon. “It’s 43 degrees, Chongqing residents are already stretched to the limit,” one resident said on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform. To ensure residents in central districts comply with the testing order, authorities have turned the health codes on everyone’s cellphones orange. Codes will only go green after they complete Covid tests. A green code is a prerequisite for daily life in China, where freedom of movement is dictated by a color-coded system imposed by the government to control the spread of the virus. Residents who have not been tested will not be allowed to attend gatherings, meetings or business activities, nor can they enter crowded, closed public spaces, according to authorities. Chongqing resident Zheng Meng, 42, said a message on the health code app told him to take a Covid test around midnight on Wednesday. “Forcing more than 10 million people to take a Covid test in such high temperatures is sad,” he said. “This is neither scientific, logical nor legal.” Zheng said people began lining up for tests at his apartment complex in the wee hours of Wednesday, but he declined to take one. On Thursday, he was denied entry to a supermarket because of a code orange on his health app, he said. “The excessive measures against Covid have caused us a lot of inconvenience. Many of my friends resent being forced to take a Covid test,” he said.
Raging fires and power outages
The tests came as thousands of emergency responders battled to contain the fast-spreading wildfires, which have swept through forests and mountains around the city in recent days. The flames are visible at night from parts of the city centre. On social media, residents in downtown Chongqing complained of smelling smoke in their apartments, while others posted photos of burning embers from the fires reaching their balconies. Since August 18, fires have broken out in many remote areas, local authorities said. The municipality is home to more than 32 million people. The wildfires are another devastating effect of a devastating heat wave – China’s worst since 1961 – that has swept the country’s southwest, central and eastern regions in recent weeks, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius in more than 100 cities. China’s heat wave has also brought rising demand for air conditioning and reductions in hydropower capacity due to droughts that have hit the country’s commercially critical Yangtze River and connected waterways. This week, Sichuan province, neighboring Chongqing, extended temporary power outages to factories in 19 of the region’s 21 cities. Power outages will last until at least Thursday, in a move the local government said would ensure power supply to homes. Last week, the provincial capital of Chengdu began dimming the lights in subway stations to save electricity. The power crisis has dealt a devastating blow to farmers, who have seen crops and livestock wither and die in scorched fields and suffocated sheds. On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, the owner of a chicken farm in Sichuan posted a video showing piles of dead poultry lying on the ground. “I see them dying,” the owner said through tears. “The temperature was so high yesterday, yet they cut the power.” On Tuesday, Chinese authorities including the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Meteorological Administration jointly issued an emergency notice, requiring local authorities to reduce the effects of drought and high temperatures on the country’s autumn grain production. Local authorities were asked to “publish early warning information, expand drought-resistant water sources and guide the development of cloud seeding.” The Meteorological Service announced on Tuesday that it had dispatched a high-performance aircraft to Chongqing to help conduct cloud seeding, according to state-run CCTV. Meteorological authorities in Chongqing said the aircraft would coordinate with 107 anti-aircraft guns and 96 rockets on the ground to accurately create rainfall, CCTV reported. CNN’s Simone McCarthy contributed reporting.
