Late-Summer Heat Wave Bakes Southern Europe
In France, Spain and Italy, residents and tourists did
their best to avoid scorching temperatures — again.
By Rachel
Chaundler and Aurelien Breeden
Rachel
Chaundler reported from Zaragoza, Spain, and Aurelien Breeden from Paris.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/world/europe/europe-heat-wave-spain-italy-france.html
Aug. 24,
2023
Updated
10:26 a.m. ET
Sitting in
a park in Zaragoza, a city in northeastern Spain, Jorge Jiménez, 41, was trying
to enjoy a day off from his job as a municipal garbage collector. But the heat
was making it difficult.
“We get
very hot these days,” Mr. Jiménez said. “It’s horrendous.”
He was not
alone.
Large areas
of southern Europe baked under extreme temperatures on Thursday, the latest in
a string of heat waves that have scorched the continent over the summer and
sent residents and tourists scrambling for cool shelter.
In a region
where it is not especially common for homes and businesses to have
air-conditioning, many areas sweltered under temperatures exceeding 86 to 95
degrees Fahrenheit, or 30 to 35 degrees Celsius, and some topped 104 degrees.
Temperatures in some cities were not as high but still far above the norm for
so late in the summer.
In France,
where the heat wave hit record highs after days of rising temperatures,
construction workers and grape pickers started their days before sunrise. Many
residents kept their shutters closed as they hunkered down in darkened homes or
hunted for air-conditioned spaces like movie theaters.
In Italy,
the Health Ministry has issued heat-related red alerts in more than half of the
country’s 27 main cities, including Florence, Venice, Milan and Rome, where
tourists crowded around water fountains and tried to keep the sun at bay with
straw hats, bandannas and umbrellas.
And Spain
is sweltering under its fourth heat wave this summer, even as firefighters
battle blazes that have broken out in the country’s central and southern
regions. One blood transfusion center in the city of Valladolid even made an
urgent plea for donors to give blood because stocks were running low in the
heat. “When it’s hot, people go out less, and they’re more afraid of adverse
reactions such as fainting,” said Marta Yañez, a hematologist at the center.
Although it
is difficult to link individual events to climate change, scientists say that
it is fueling more extreme weather events, and heat waves in Europe have
increased in frequency and intensity more quickly than practically anywhere
else on the planet.
“We are
beating temperature records every day,” Christophe Béchu, the French
environment minister, told RTL radio on Thursday, “which shows how quickly
climate imbalance is accelerating.”
France’s
national weather forecaster said on Thursday that the heat wave was “durable
and intense” in about two-thirds of the country, with “remarkable and even
exceptional” temperatures in some areas, like the Rhône Valley and parts of the
south.
Wednesday
was the hottest day ever recorded in France since 1947 for the second half of
August, with an average nationwide temperature of 81.5 degrees Fahrenheit,
according to the French weather forecaster — breaking a record that had already
been broken twice this week. Temperatures were expected to fall starting on
Friday.
Not even
northern regions along Spain’s Atlantic coast — where vacationers usually flock
for cooler climes in the summer — have escaped the extreme heat. On Wednesday,
Bilbao, a busy port city that is home to a Guggenheim museum, hit a stifling
record temperature of 110.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
Officials
in several countries have asked people to avoid strenuous activity outside and
urged seniors and children to stay home and hydrated.
In the
Drôme, an area of southeast France that has been hit particularly hard by the
broiling temperatures, the local authorities have banned all nonaquatic
sporting events until further notice and asked organizers to schedule any
outdoor cultural festivities later in the day.
The
authorities have also recommended that businesses shield their employees as
best they can.
Mr.
Jiménez, the garbage collector in Zaragoza, said that he and his colleagues
were not allowed to push heavy collection trolleys or drive sweeper trucks not
equipped with air-conditioning.
“It’s
hell,” he said. “Even if you lower the windows, there’s no cool air.”
Since the
death last summer of a garbage collector in Madrid who collapsed while sweeping
streets, protocol also dictates 10-minute breaks in the shade every hour.
Some
workers have taken matters into their own hands.
Cooling off
on the outskirts of Madrid. The heat is exacerbated by the lack of
air-conditioning in many homes and businesses.Credit...Violeta Santos
Moura/Reuters
In Italy’s
northern region of Veneto, about a hundred irate workers at a home appliance
factory of Electrolux, a Swedish multinational, ended their shifts earlier on
Wednesday because they felt that measures put in place to mitigate heat —
including cooling systems and the provision of watermelons — were insufficient.
Many cities
across southern Europe are trying to keep their citizens cool by extending park
hours. In Lyon, France, the city authorities did the same with air-conditioned
spaces like museums.
In
Marseille, a Mediterranean port, officials said municipal pools would offer
free access all week, even as France’s vast but aging public pool system feels
the strains of rising energy costs, increasing water scarcity and struggling
public budgets.
In
Zaragoza, the City Council made a similar decision by offering a 40 percent
discount on entry to municipal pools.
But Rocío
Ramón, 40, a local resident and secondary school teacher, said the bus stop to
get to the closest pool was a 10-minute walk — far too exhausting an endeavor
in the intense heat. Ms. Ramón was playing in the early morning with her young
daughter on the swings of a local park before it got too hot to stay outdoors.
“We just
wish this was over,” she said.
Gaia
Pianigiani contributed reporting from Rome.
Aurelien
Breeden has covered France from the Paris bureau since 2014. He has reported on
some of the worst terrorist attacks to hit the country, the dismantling of the
migrant camp in Calais and France's tumultuous 2017 presidential election. More
about Aurelien Breeden
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