Europe is facing a strong wave of heatwave. In most countries, record-breaking phenomena hit the population. In Spain, the phenomenon has made its first deaths.
The heat wave, which has already killed three people in Spain, continues to rage across Western Europe, where, from north to south, tourists and residents continue to sweat and worry about the effects of heat stroke.
Spain: three dead
Three men died of “hot shots” this week in Spain . In Barcelona, a man, apparently homeless, was found collapsed in a street and transported to the hospital where he died “of heat stroke,” announced Friday evening the civil protection agency of Catalonia in a statement .
Two other men – a labourer in his forties who was working on a highway, and a 78-year-old man who was making his garden – died this week in the country, where temperatures peaked at 44 ° C on Friday in Badajoz, Extremadura (southeastern Spain). Where is). It has also been an overwhelming heat in Madrid (40 °) and Seville in Andalusia (south) 42 °, according to the meteorological agency.
Record temperatures in Portugal
The prize goes to Portugal, with 45.2 ° at Alvega, about 150 km from Lisbon – a historic record. Elsewhere in the country, the 40 ° was most often exceeded, according to meteorological services.
In Portugal, Saturday should be the most critical day, and eleven districts from north to south are on red alert until Sunday.
In the newspapers on Friday were pictures of tourists and locals bathing in the Douro in Porto or in the Tagus in Lisbon, where they have notably invested the steps of “cais das colunas” (quay of the columns), which descend in the river, to cool off.
In Sweden, the melting of a glacier
At the other end of Europe, Sweden, which recorded its warmest month of July in more than 250 years, continued at this beginning of August to experience unusually high temperatures for this Nordic country, turning around 30 °.
This heat has caused a major geographical shift: the country has lost its climax. It was indeed a glacier, the southern peak of Kebnekaise, in the Arctic. But this one has lost in July alone 14 cm per day, and is now overtaken by the north peak of Kebnekaise, which is made of rock, and thus becomes the highest point of Sweden with 2096.8 m.
Sweden, which experienced major fires in July, including beyond the Arctic Circle, remains on the alert. Indeed, the country has hardly had rain since May, and nature is particularly dry. Thunderstorms are however expected Saturday.
In Italy, free water distributed
Italy, after 40 ° at the beginning of the week in Sardinia and in the north of the country , has returned to the 35 ° more usual for this Mediterranean country. In Rome, where everyone can already drink free at public fountains, civil protection still distributes bottles of water to tourists.
In agriculture, cows also suffer from heat. The national farmers’ union, Coldiretti, said that milk production has dropped by 15%. At the same time, ice cream consumption increased by 30% during the week, according to the union.
France on alert
In France, 67 of the 95 departments are on alert -record matched with 2017, with temperatures exceeding 30 ° almost everywhere, except in the north-west, and up to 38 ° in the south.
Friday was “one of the hottest days,” according to forecaster Stéven Testelin.
The heat should drop slightly Sunday, before a “second peak” Monday and Tuesday but “we are far from the heat wave of 2003,” added Stéven Testelin. The summer of 2003 remains the hottest ever since 1950.
In Austria, horses at rest
Finally in Austria, if the 2013 record of 40.5 ° is not yet reached, it is still hot enough for the famous haberdashery of Salzburg to be banned from circulation: a law prohibits in fact to make work horses when it is over 35 °.
In Belgium, an increase in accidents
Belgian road safety VIAS reported an increase in the number of road accidents due to the heat wave .
“The average daily number of accidents is up 15% during a heat wave. And accidents are more serious, “said VIAS spokesman Stef Willems, quoted by the Belgian media.
