2023-07-11 19:45:41
On Tuesday, 43 degrees were already measured in Sardinia – but not only there, the heat wave with temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius makes people sweat all over Italy. Meteorologists have dubbed the heat wave “Cerberus,” like the multi-headed hellhound that guards the entrance to the underworld. It will last at least until next weekend.
In Rome, rescue workers had to be called out dozens of times, mainly to help the elderly. Numerous senior citizens suffered circulatory collapses and fainting spells. A number of elderly people suffering from acute dehydration, heart and circulatory problems or breathing difficulties were also treated in the emergency rooms of the Milan hospitals.
IMAGO/ingimage/Via Imago-Images.de/Via Imago-Images.de View over Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia – temperatures of over 45 degrees are expected on the Italian island
The Ministry of Health declared a heat emergency for the larger cities. The respective preventive programs in the cities should therefore apply everywhere to seniors and people with chronic respiratory diseases in order to prevent an increase in deaths from the sweltering heat. People are looking to cool off by the sea – there are hardly any free accommodations left in popular tourist destinations.
Greece before the first heat wave
Greece also has the extreme heat firmly under control: According to forecasts, temperatures in the country are expected to rise to over 40 degrees. In the capital Athens, maximum temperatures of up to 45 degrees might be reached on Saturday, as the country’s weather service announced on Tuesday. The authorities urge caution and recommend avoiding heavy physical exertion.
debate
What to do once morest the heat?
Many cities and towns will open air-conditioned halls to the public so that those who do not have air-conditioning can gather there. Various unions called for Friday to be declared a day off because of the heat. However, the government has not yet commented on this. People are encouraged to work from home if possible.
Employers were asked not to subject their employees to heavy physical work outdoors. Meteorologists have not yet been able to say how long the heat wave will last. However, they fear the high temperatures might last for up to 10 days. After all, the risk of fire is not high so far. In Greece it had been raining heavily until a few weeks ago.
In the evening 40 degrees in Madrid
The situation in Spain is similar: just two weeks following the last heat wave, people in the south of the country are once more suffering from extremely high temperatures. In parts of Andalusia it was up to 44 degrees at the start of the week. The National Weather Service Aemet declared the highest red alert for this region, in which the cities of Seville and Cordoba are located. Already at the end of June 44 degrees were measured there in the shade.
APA/AFP/Thomas Coex It’s extremely hot in Madrid at the moment
It was also very hot in other parts of the country at the beginning of the week – in the capital Madrid it was still 40 degrees on Tuesday evening. It was a little more bearable in Catalonia with 30 degrees and in the north of the country with temperatures around 25 degrees. This second heat wave of the summer might only subside by the end of the week. In Spain, heat waves have become more frequent in recent years, as Aemet emphasizes.
France suffers from water shortages
In France, meanwhile, the water is threatening to run out. A good two-thirds of the groundwater reservoirs are still not sufficiently full, Environment Minister Christophe Bechu told the France Inter broadcaster on Tuesday. In regarding 20 percent of the aquifers, the water level is even “very low,” he added. The precipitation in spring hardly improved the situation, since it was largely absorbed by the plants.
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Even the increasing number of thunderstorms did not change anything, since the water masses would hardly be absorbed by the dry soil. While the situation in Brittany has improved slightly, things are looking rather worse in Alsace, in the greater Paris area, in the Rhone Valley and on the Mediterranean.
In the extremely dry past year, 700 French municipalities no longer had their own drinking water. Around 72,000 hectares of land burned down and around 60,000 people had to be brought to safety. The government therefore increased the fire brigade and increased the number of firefighting aircraft from 38 to 47. A reserve of 3,600 firefighters should be able to be used in forest fires.
Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent
Although individual extreme events cannot be directly traced back to a specific cause, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change it is clear that extreme weather events such as floods, storms and heat are becoming more frequent and more intense as a result of the climate crisis. This means: Precipitation and storms are getting heavier, heat waves are getting hotter and droughts are getting drier.
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