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The heat wave in China confirms the concern about climate change. As the water level of the Yangtze River has dropped in recent days in southern China, three 600-year-old Buddhist statues have poked their heads into China’s largest river and the world’s third-largest river, which runs from the Tibetan Plateau to Shanghai.
By Stéphane Lagarde RFI correspondent in Beijing
The discovery was filmed from all angles by Chongqing television: In cavities cut into the rock, a trio of small statues appeared, including one of a monk sitting on a lotus flower.
According to the New China Agency, the work could be 600 years old, dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties.
An exceptional drought
The images, which went around the world, have become a symbol of the extreme weather conditions that many countries face this summer. As many as 66 rivers in 34 counties of the Chongqing megalopolis have dried up, China Central Television reported on Friday.
But it is the entire “long river” basin, as the Chinese say, that is affected by this exceptional drought: the course of the Yangtze River has fallen to its lowest level in 150 years, according to some specialists, in the south, but also in the center of the country. With other images, just as revealing, that have shocked opinion here, including these people in Wuhan crossing the Yangtze on foot, walking on what would normally be the river bed.
Buddha saved from the waters
In Chongqing, some residents pleaded for the rain to return after wildfires swept through the mountains in recent hours. Stunning nighttime images posted on the Weibo network show a red sky that seems to cover the horizon.
The Chongqing mountain fires are trending on Weibo, People’s Daily sent out this video two hours ago, a lot of people in comments repeating the same sentiment: please let it rain, please let it rain ? pic.twitter.com/7yQgg2jyd5
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) August 21, 2022
In China it has never been so hot and the thermometer goes crazy: this summer the threshold of 40 degrees has been exceeded in many regions.
Buddhists also pray, although this is not the first time that religious works of art have appeared. In 2017, a villager in the eastern province of Jiangxi discovered a Buddha head sitting against a cliff. This revelation also came after a sudden drop in the water level, but this time it was related to the repair of a dam gate.
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