A temperature above 40 degrees was measured in the UK for the first time on Tuesday. In Belgium and Germany, heat rates are reduced by the width of the hair. The heat has caused many problems elsewhere in Europe, including forest fires. In France, Italy and Greece, the fire service is completely full. Although the worst of the temperatures in Spain and Portugal are over, forest fires are still raging there.
In the London area, the fire service received five times as many calls on Tuesday afternoon. Mayor Sadiq Khan spoke of a critical situation due to pressure on the fire service.
Calculation models from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) assume nearly a thousand additional deaths this month as a result of the heat wave. Heat records were broken in at least 34 places in the UK on Tuesday.
In Italy, wildfires broke out in Tuscany and near Rome, Milan and Trieste. Eugenio Gianni, governor of Tuscany, said that by mid-afternoon, a 365-hectare area outside Pisa had already caught fire.
The Athens region falls prey to forest fires again
In the French province of Gironde, the forest fires that have broken out in the Bordeaux region since 12 July have become the largest in thirty years. Since then an area the size of Eindhoven has caught fire, forcing some 34,000 people to leave their homes.
Forest fires have also erupted again around the Greek capital, Athens, an area that already had to deal with a massive sea of fire last year. Some suburbs were evacuated by order of the authorities.
Spain is still struggling with about thirty wildfires spread across the country. In the regions of Galicia, Castile and Leon, the authorities are closely monitoring the situation. 70,000 hectares of nature have already caught fire this year, more than double the average for this decade. In some parts of Spain it hasn’t rained for nearly half a year.
NU reader MF Cheng submitted the above photo from the Pisa region.
NU reader MF Cheng submitted the above photo from the Pisa region.
picture: NU.nl
