BEIJING - At least two people have died from heatstroke in one Chinese city and many more have fallen ill, as temperatures hovered around 40 deg C for the eighth day on the eastern seaboard.

       Over the next three days, most areas south of the Yangtze River, which empties into the sea in Shanghai, are expected to bake in 37 to 39 deg C heat, with temperatures in parts of Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces exceeding 40 deg C, forecasters said on Aug 8.

       After sweltering in its hottest July in observed modern history, China has continued to suffer from extreme heat, particularly in the east and south of the country.

       Zhejiang’s provincial capital Hangzhou recorded a 41.9 deg C historical high on Aug 3.

       Emergency services in Shenzhen, a city of 18 million people in Guangdong province, said they had made 88 emergency house calls due to heat-related illnesses from Aug 1 to 6.

       Two men, one in his 50s and the other in his 60s, later died, according to a statement released on Aug 7.

       China does not give a tally of heat-related deaths, although domestic media occasionally report fatalities, citing local authorities.

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       In 2022, China was hit by the worst heatwaves since 1961, with many parts of the country enduring a 79-day hot spell from June 13 to Aug 30. No official death tally has been disclosed.

       China’s Ministry of Emergency Management said 554 people died or went missing that year “due to natural disasters”.

       Heat-related deaths can be hard to categorise as fatalities, as a heatstroke could be classified differently if the cause of death was a heart attack or organ failure.

       In a 2023 report published in the medical journal The Lancet, heatwave-related mortality in China was estimated at 50,900 deaths in 2022, doubling from 2021. REUTERS