AFP

Cities across China were on red alert for heatwaves on Monday, as tens of millions of people were warned to stay indoors and record temperatures strained energy supply.

Swathes of the planet have been hit by extreme and deadly heatwaves in recent months, from Western Europe in July to India in March to April.

Scientists say the extreme weather has become more frequent due to climate change, and will likely grow more intense as global temperatures continue to rise.

China is no exception and is sweating through one of its hottest summers on record.

In the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian, the mercury rose above 41 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) over the weekend, reaching all-time highs in two cities.

People in areas under red heat alerts — mostly concentrated in the southeast and northwest — are being ordered to “cease all outdoor activities” and “pay special attention to fire prevention,” the national meteorological service said in multiple notices over the weekend.

Saturday marked the “Great Heat” day on China’s traditional calendar, long recognised as the hottest period of the year, but this summer has been exceptionally warm.

Earlier this month Shanghai recorded its highest air temperature — 40.9C — since records began in 1873.

The scorching heat sent hundreds of people to the beach in Fujian’s Xiamen city on Sunday, while others hid from the sun under hats and face coverings.

China’s power grid is also feeling the strain from increased demand for air conditioning, with the country’s largest power plants generating at a record capacity in mid-July, according to energy industry publication Sxcoal.

Some local governments have resorted to turning off street lamps and raising peak period electricity tariffs for factories this month.

The ongoing heat wave, which has struck the lower reaches of the Yangtze River especially hard, will also “adversely affect local crops,” warned Fu Jiaolan, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Centre.

Local authorities in Japan’s Yamaguchi city said Monday they are turning to tranquiliser guns to confront marauding monkeys that have injured 42 people in recent weeks.

Japanese macaques are seen commonly across large parts of the country, and are a pest in some areas, eating crops and even entering homes.

But a spate of monkey attacks in the city in western Japan has been unusual, with adults and children suffering wounds including scratches and bites.

“All of Yamaguchi city is surrounded by mountains and it’s not rare to see monkeys,” a city official from the agricultural department told AFP, declining to give her name.

“But it’s rare to see this many attacks in a short period of time.”

The injuries have so far been largely mild, but authorities are now turning to tranquiliser guns after traps they set failed to snare any of the pesky primates.

“Initially only children and women were attacked. Recently elderly people and adult men have been targeted too,” the official said.

The city isn’t even sure if the attacks are the work of multiple monkeys or a single aggressive individual. The intruders have in some cases entered by sliding open screen doors, or entering through windows.

City officials and police have been patrolling the area since the first attacks around July 8, but have yet to snare any monkeys.

The story has made headlines in Japan in recent weeks, with local residents reporting regular invasions.

“I heard crying coming from the ground floor, so I hurried down,” one local father told the Mainichi Shimbun daily.

“Then I saw a monkey hunching over my child.”

Under a split-top mountain on the Japanese island of Sado lies a network of centuries-old mines that have sparked a new diplomatic row with South Korea.

Some of the gold and silver mines of Sado, off Japan’s west coast, are believed to have started operating as early as the 12th century and produced until after World War II.

Japan believes that lengthy history and the artisanal mining techniques used there at a time when European mines had turned to mechanisation merit recognition on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

But in Seoul, the focus is on what isn’t mentioned in the bid: the use of conscripted Korean labour during the Second World War, when Japan occupied the Korean peninsula.

Japan is seeking recognition of three sites — the Nishimikawa gold mine, the Tsurushi silver mine, and the Aikawa gold and silver mines — for the period between 1603 and 1867.

Officials and supporters of the bid say that era was when the mines were the world’s most productive and mining was done by hand.

But it also stops short of the period when conscripted Koreans toiled in conditions that even some backers of the UNESCO bid call “extremely harsh”.

The World Heritage effort has been years in the making, inspired in part by the successful recognition of a silver mine in western Japan’s Shimane region.

Ryo Usami, from Sado city’s World Heritage Promotion section, said locals hoped the recognition would highlight the mine’s contributions to the unique culture and history of the island.

“Many people migrated to Sado to mine gold and silver… They came from all over Japan and brought their local cultures,” Usami told AFP.

“Sado’s history is basically the history of these gold mines, and its culture formed in part thanks to the mining operations. That’s what Sado city wants to preserve.”

– ‘Discrimination did exist’ –

Production at the sites petered out by the 1960s, when mine operator Mitsubishi Materials began accepting tourists.

In the 1970s, animatronic robots were installed in some mining tunnels to give a sense of what life there was like.

The eerie, rundown figures remain, their heads swivelling side-to-side and arms mechanically swinging pickaxes up and down in a forlorn fashion.

Groups of domestic tourists file through the frigid tunnels and read panels that explain the history of Sado’s mining industry.

The panels note that Edo-era miners were often homeless or unregistered people who were captured and forced to work, and that child labour was used at times.

But there is little to testify that an estimated 1,500 Koreans worked at the sites during World War II.

Their status is disputed, with some arguing around two-thirds signed contracts voluntarily, while the remainder were conscripted during war-time mobilisation.

“The working conditions were extremely harsh, nevertheless the pay was very high, that’s why lots of people, including many Japanese, applied,” said Koichiro Matsuura, a former UNESCO director-general who is backing Sado’s bid.

Others argue the recruitment conditions effectively amounted to forced labour, and that Korean workers faced significantly harsher conditions than their Japanese counterparts.

“Discrimination did exist,” said Toyomi Asano, a professor of history of Japanese politics at Tokyo’s Waseda University.

“Their working conditions were very bad and dangerous. The most dangerous jobs were allocated to them.”

– ‘A part of our history’ –

Wartime issues like forced labour have soured ties between Japan and South Korea, and Seoul has formed a task force to push back against the UNESCO bid.

After the bid was announced, the government summoned Tokyo’s ambassador and issued a statement saying it “strongly regrets” the nomination and “sternly urges Japan to stop its attempt”.

The issue of forced labour affects other Japanese heritage sites, including the “Sites of the Meiji Industrial Revolution” inscribed in 2015.

UNESCO last year demanded an information centre for the sites properly explain that a “large number of Koreans and others (were) brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions”.

Matsuura believes Japan must “avoid making the same mistake” at Sado.

“We must say in a more concrete and more honest manner how the Korean workers lived and worked at the Sado gold mines.”

It’s a view shared by some visitors, including 79-year-old Hideji Yamagami.

“Of course they should (explain), I didn’t know about it at all,” he told AFP after a trip through the Aikawa site.

“I thought it was Japanese who had done all the hard work.”

Asano hopes UNESCO will insist the full history of Sado’s mines is on display if the site gets World Heritage status, and believes Japan “should not fear” recognising a part of its history.

“Every nation has its dark history, those nations who are completely exempt do not exist.”

A fierce California wildfire expanded Sunday, burning several thousand acres and forcing evacuations as tens of millions of Americans sweltered through scorching heat.

More than 2,000 firefighters backed by 17 helicopters have been deployed against the Oak Fire, which broke out Friday near Yosemite National Park, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) said in a report.

But two days after it began, the blaze has already consumed more than 15,600 acres (6,313 hectares) and remains zero percent contained, the report said, adding that heat combined with low humidity would “hamper” efforts Sunday.

“Extreme drought conditions have led to critical fuel moisture levels,” according to CAL FIRE’s report.

Described as “explosive” by officials, the blaze has left ashes, gutted vehicles and twisted remains of properties in its wake, as emergency personnel worked to evacuate residents and protect structures in its path.

It has already destroyed 10 properties and damaged five others, with thousands more threatened.

More than 6,000 people had been evacuated, said Hector Vasquez, a CAL FIRE official.

“It was scary when we left because we were getting ashes on us, but we had such a visual of this billowing. It just seemed like it was above our house and coming our way really quickly,” one woman who had to be evacuated, Lynda Reynolds-Brown, told local news station KCRA.

“We started getting our stuff together, and that’s when I went back up the hill and looked and I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ It was coming fast,” her husband Aubrey Brown told the station.

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday declared a state of emergency in Mariposa County, citing “conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property.”

In recent years, California and other parts of the western United States have been ravaged by huge and fast-moving wildfires, driven by years of drought and a warming climate.

– Gore blasts ‘inaction’ –

Evidence of global warming could be seen elsewhere in the country, as 85 million Americans in more than a dozen states were under a weekend heat advisory.

The crisis prompted former vice president Al Gore, a tireless climate advocate, to issue stark warnings Sunday about “inaction” by US lawmakers.

Asked whether he believes US President Joe Biden should declare a climate emergency, which would grant him additional policy powers, Gore was blunt.

“Mother Nature has already declared it a global emergency,” he told ABC News talk show “This Week.”

And “it’s due to get much, much worse, and quickly,” he said separately on NBC.

But he also suggested that recent crises, including deadly heat waves in Europe, could serve as a wake-up call for members of US Congress who have so far refused to embrace efforts to combat climate change.

“I think these extreme events that are getting steadily worse and more severe are really beginning to change minds,” he said.

The central and northeast US regions have faced the brunt of the extreme heat, which is forecast to lessen somewhat on Monday.

“Searing heat will continue across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast tonight before the upper trough over Canada dips down into the region to moderate temperatures a bit tomorrow,” the National Weather Service said Sunday afternoon.

But not all regions are expected to cool down: temperatures of 100 or more degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) are forecast in the coming days across parts of eastern Kansas and Oklahoma into southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.

Not even the usually cool Pacific Northwest will escape the far-reaching heat, with high temperatures “forecast to steadily rise over the next few days, leading to the possibility for records to be broken,” the weather service added.

Cities have been forced to open cooling stations and increase outreach to at-risk communities such as the homeless and those without access to air conditioning.

Various regions of the globe have been hit by extreme heat waves in recent months, such as Western Europe in July and India in March to April, incidents that scientists say are an unmistakable sign of a warming climate.