Students are fleeing their stifling dorms to sleep in stores and corridors as Chinese authorities warn of severe heat in the country’s eastern region. An unnamed 20-year-old university student in northern Changchun city tells the BBC, “We sometimes go out to stay in hotels for the air-conditioning.” “There are always a few days in a year when it’s unbearably hot.
Students who want to escape hot evenings in their dorms—which usually have no air conditioning and can accommodate four to eight people per room are increasingly choosing hotels. However, the transfer is a last choice for many. According to the Changchun student, “checking into a hotel is a huge expense for us students.
On less desperate days, he uses what he refers to as “a homemade air-conditioner”—a basin of ice cubes placed in front of a little fan—to chill his dorm room. As the semester came to a conclusion this week, the innovation helped him get by.
Known as “dog days” in China, the sanfu season typically begins in mid-July. However, it came early this year, and millions of locals were caught off guard when temperatures in the eastern area soared beyond 40 °C (104°F) during the last week.
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