Southern Europe will continue to swelter next week as an intense heatwave shows no sign of abating.

Italy, Spain and Greece have been experiencing high temperatures for several days already.

The Italian health ministry issued a red alert for 16 cities including Rome, Bologna and Florence for the weekend.

The heatwave is expected to continue well into next week, with 48C (118.4F) predicted in Sardinia, according to Italian media.

The European record high of 48.8C (119.8F) was recorded in Sicily in August 2021.

The Italian weather service said the island will be at the “epicentre” of next week’s heatwave, which weather forecasters have dubbed Charon, after the ferryman who delivered souls into the underworld in Greek mythology.

Italy’s government has advised anyone in the areas covered by Saturday’s red alerts to avoid direct sunlight between 11:00 and 18:00, and to take particular care of the elderly or vulnerable.

In Rome, tour guide Felicity Hinton, 59, told the BBC the soaring temperatures combined with overcrowding has made it “nightmarish” to navigate the city.

“It’s always hot in Rome but this has just been consistently hot for a lot longer than normal,” she said.

“My tour guide friends and I are extremely stressed out. People have been fainting on tours and there are ambulances outside everywhere.”

Rome resident Elena, 62 told the BBC that she has noticed a “marked change” in summer temperatures since around 2003, and that they have been growing exponentially since.

Meanwhile, Greece has hit temperatures of 40C (104F) or more in recent days. The Acropolis in Athens – the country’s most popular tourist attraction – was closed during the hottest hours of Friday and Saturday to protect visitors.

In Spain, a forest fire on the island of La Palma has forced the evacuation of at least 500 people.

The heatwave is set to extend to the Balkans later next week – although several countries, like Serbia and Hungary, are already experiencing daily temperatures hovering around 35C (95F).

Periods of intense heat occur within natural weather patterns, but globally they are becoming more frequent, more intense and are lasting longer due to global warming.

Last month was the hottest June on record, according to the EU’s climate monitoring service Copernicus.

Extreme weather resulting from warming climate is “unfortunately becoming the new normal”, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has warned.

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The worst heatwave in decades is causing deaths and mayhem across southeast Europe, with wildfires causing entire villages to be evacuated and millions of people instructed not to venture out into the midday sun.

Hot air from Africa is driving the heatwave, with temperatures reaching above 40C (104 F) in many areas, and meteorologists expect the weather will continue into next week making it the most severe since the 1980s.

Authorities in Greece, Turkey, Serbia and Bulgaria, and many other countries in the region, are warning residents to avoid direct sunlight during midday hours, while firefighting crews across the region are scrambling to protect properties.

Dozens of wildfires in Turkey have already claimed several lives and left more than 50 people in hospital according to officials, with villages and beach resorts being evacuated across the south of the country.

Satellite images have shown the devastation caused by deadly wildfires raging across the region.Advertisement

Those killed in Turkey included a married couple and an 82-year-old man, as well as a 25-year-old volunteer who was taking drinking water to firefighters but was involved in a motorcycle crash.

The intense temperatures are driving wildfires and forcing entire villages to be evacuated.

Azerbaijan has announced that it is sending hundreds of emergency responders to help with the effort, alongside helicopters and specialist equipment.

Russia and Ukraine have also sent planes to help tackle the fires from the skies, with neighbouring Greece offering its assistance.

Authorities in Greece warned members of the public not to embark on unnecessary journeys on Friday as thermometers rose to 40C (104 F) in Athens.

Athens is the location of the hottest weather ever recorded in Europe, at 48C (118 F) on 10 July 1977.

Extreme weather such as the recent deadly floods in Germany and Belgium, and the unprecedented heatwave in Canada and the US are expected to become more frequent due to climate change creating greater instability in weather patterns.

“If we think more globally, we’ve had some very, very severe weather events recently, 49.6C (121.28 F), an all-time temperature record in Canada,” said Mike Kendon, the senior climate scientist at the UN World Meteorological Office (WMO) said.

“When you see observations like that, they are taking us outside our own envelope of experience of what we have seen before. An event like that is simply not possible to explain without the human influence on the climate system.”

The UN WMO says that 2020 was one of the three warmest years ever recorded, and the warmest on record for Europe.

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L’article Wildfires and deaths across southeast Europe amid most severe heatwave in decades est apparu en premier sur زوايا ميادين | Mayadin Columns.