PARIS, July 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A welcome temperature drop came to western parts of Europe, bringing relief to areas that have sweltered through a widespread, deadly heatwave for almost a week.
But the reprieve was not universal, with Germany measuring a record high temperature for June and Spanish firefighters battling three major blazes with the help of more than 700 soldiers and water bombing planes.
In Rome, Pope Francis told pilgrims on Saint Peter’s Square: “I pray for those who have suffered the most from the heat in recent days; the sick, the elderly, those who work outside, on construction sites … let no one be abandoned or exploited.”
Six days of intense heat fuelled huge blazes and spikes in pollution in many countries, and officially claimed four lives in France, two in Italy and another two in Spain.
The victims included a 17-year-old harvest worker, a 33-year-old roofer and a 72-year-old homeless man.
In northern and western France Sunday, hot-weather warnings were lifted days after the country posted successive record temperatures as it sizzled alongside Italy, Spain and some central European nations.
The mercury was predicted to drop by as much as 10 degrees Celsius in Paris Sunday but to continue rising in central and eastern Germany and in Italy before rainstorms cool things down by Tuesday.
On Sunday, a record 38.9 C was measured in Bad Kreuznach in Rhineland-Palatinate state, according to data from the national weather service, wiping out the previous high of 38.6 C recorded Wednesday in two other towns.
In Frankfurt, the blazing heat took its toll on US athlete Sarah True, who had been leading the Ironman European championships but lost the race as she collapsed a kilometre before the finish line.
The firefighter service in Hamburg reported that “many runners collapsed during a half-marathon which took place under a heat that reached 33 degrees. Twenty-four runners had to be brought to clinics for treatment.”
Police used water cannons to help cool down the crowd at a summer street festival in Soemmerda in Thuringia state.
In central Spain, temperatures close to 42 C hammered firefighting crews Saturday, notably near Almorox where at least 2,000 hectares have burnt while flames crept towards Madrid, forcing the evacuation of a village and 200 people from a campsite, emergency services said.
Another major fire burned near Toledo, while in northeastern Catalonia, an inferno that had begun on Wednesday was being brought under control, regional authorities said. — NNN-AGENCIES
Four Spanish weather stations have reported June records from 38.8 C to 41.9 C.
In France, fires razed about 600 hectares (1,480 acres) and dozens of houses in the southern Gard department.
LIKE A “BLOWTORCH”
This is the same region where a new French record of 45.9 C was set Friday, prompting the Meteo France weather service to issue its highest alert level of red for the first time.
Some winemakers in southern France said their crops, which had already suffered three years of water shortages, were badly burnt.
Some vines, said winegrower Jerome Despey, looked as if they were burnt with a “blowtorch”.
“I’ve been a winegrower for 30 years. I have never seen a vine burnt by a sudden onset of heat,” as he did on Friday, Despey added.
France is the seventh European country to ever register a plus 45-degree temperature, along with Bulgaria, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece and North Macedonia, Meteo France said.
Meteorologists point to a blast of hot air from northern Africa for the scorching early European summer, and scientists warn that global warming linked to human fossil fuel use could make such heatwaves more frequent.
The German national weather service said temperatures were more than four degrees higher in June than an international reference period of 1981-2010.
The stifling heat also caused air quality to nosedive in some European cities, prompting local authorities to take anti-pollution measures such as temporary bans on the use of cars that caused the most pollution.
Source: AFP
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