Not since 1961 has Jiangsu seen temperatures in mid July this high. In Nanjing, with humidity levels also soaring, the threat of heat stroke is very real indeed. For “multiple organ failure” is a cause of death increasingly common in 2022.
Over the last 2 days, record-breaking temperatures have been recorded all over the country, but especially in Hebei Province in the centre of China. There, temperatures topping 44 degrees Celsius have been reported by the cities of Lingshou (44.2 degrees), Gaocheng (44.1 degrees), Zhengding (44.0 degrees) and Yanjin (44.0 degrees).
Elsewhere, temperatures exceeding 40 degrees have also been recorded in several cities in Sichuan Province, while same has also been reported in our own Jiangsu Province, in the cities of Suzhou and Yixing.
Here also, no less than 31 meteorological stations in Jiangsu reported temperatures not seen in mid July since 1961, coincidentally, 61 years ago.
While there will be something of a temperature let up in the form of storms next week, tomorrow is going to be another hot one. In the past few minutes, Jiangsu Meteorology has predicted a high of 39.9 degrees for Liyang in Changzhou City.
The high temperatures have also called for some extreme measures to help professionals doing their job stay cool. In Shanghai, medical workers clad in PPE administering NATs outside have taken to pressing each other’s backs with plastic tubs filled with ice to stave off possible heat stroke.
Also sometimes called sun stroke, heat stroke can very quickly become a fatal condition if not quickly treated by an emergency cooling of the sufferer’s body temperature. If not treated in time, the nervous system, respiratory system, liver and kidneys will be severely impacted one after the other. Multiple organ failure is usually the cause of death from heat stroke.
On 10 July, the West China Hospital of Sichuan University received three consecutive referrals of heat stroke patients. One was suffering from cardio-respiratory arrest due to multiple organ failure. While initial rescue attempts were successful, the patient finally succumbed, reports The Paper.
In our neighbouring Zhejiang Province, on 6 July, a 49 year-old male was brought to Lishui Central Hospital. While toiling in a workshop, he had suddenly fainted with a body temperature of 40.7 degrees. After 31 hours of attempts to reverse multiple organ failure, the man died in the early morning of 8 July.
The dangers of heat stroke may also be even greater than we think. And in a place such as Nanjing, known for both high temperatures and levels of humidity, that’s a worrisome combination.
For over a decade, it was thought that a “wet-bulb” temperature of 35 degrees at 100 percent humidity be the upper limit for human safety. But recent experiments conducted in the Noll Laboratory at Penn State University (USA), reported by The Conversation, suggest the number to be as low as 31 degrees at 100 percent humidity, or 38 degrees at 60 percent humidity.
As a point of reference, the humidity level in Nanjing is generally over 60 percent on a daily basis, and regularly gets on for 100 percent. That’s a sobering thought for Nanjingers, especially during the sauna of July, 2022.
