Second heat wave in as many weeks grips Mediterranean while fires hit Spain, Switzerland and Greece
Mediterranean destinations on Tuesday to stay indoors during the hottest hours as the second heat wave in as many weeks hits the region and Greece, Spain and Switzerland battled wildfires. In Italy, Red Cross teams checked on the elderly by phone while in Portugal they took to social media to warn people not to leave pets or children in parked cars.
In Greece, volunteers handed out drinking water, and in Spain they reminded people to protect themselves from breathing in smoke from fires. Several parts of southern Europe are sweating through a new heat wave, amplified by climate change, that is expected to persist for days.
The UN weather agency said that temperatures in Europe could break the 48.8-degree Celsius (119.8-degree Fahrenheit) record set in Sicily two years ago, as concerns grew the heat would provoke a spike in deaths. In Cyprus, health authorities confirmed that a 90-year-old man died over the weekend from heatstroke while six other elderly people have been hospitalized.
All seven suffered heatstroke at home last week as temperatures surpassed 43 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit). «Heat waves are really an invisible killer,» Panu Saaristo, emergency health unit team leader for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told a briefing in Geneva.
«We are experiencing hotter and hotter temperatures for longer stretches of time every single summer here in Europe.» Heat records are being shattered all over the world, and scientists say there is a good chance that 2023 will go down as the hottest year on record, with measurements going back to the middle of the 19th century. June saw the warmest global average temperature, according to Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service,
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