People in Zhengzhou, the capital of central China's Henan province, cooling off in a pool at a water park last Saturday.

Provinces in northern and central China have been experiencing record-high heatwaves, no thanks to climate change.

According to the municipal meteorological station, the highest temperature in Zhengzhou was 42.3 deg C at 3.07pm last Friday, breaking the record of the highest temperature this month since the establishment of the meteorological station in 1954, reported Xinhua.

Residents have been warned not to go outdoors and state broadcaster CCTV recently showed footage of cement roads that had cracked under the extreme heat in Henan.

Power demand has also surged to record levels in several cities in the north as residents cranked up the air-conditioning to beat the heat, reported Agence France-Presse.

For example, in China's second-most populous province Shandong, home to more than 100 million people, electricity use topped 93 million kilowatts last week, beating the 2020 high of 90 million kilowatts, CCTV said.