afp_tickers
After hitting Spain Portugal and France with extreme temperatures, the early heat wave that overwhelms millions of Europeans moved on Wednesday to the east of the continent, little accustomed to heat peaks.
In Germany, the most populated EU country could even reach 40 ºC in some town, as in Mannheim, in the southwest, according to the National Meteorological Service.
In Berlin, where a maximum of 37 ºC was expected, most outdoor swimming pools were full in the middle of the afternoon.
“It is a bit like a sauna,” says Nora, 18, who sells strawberries in a kiosk of a commercial street in the German capital. “I have brought two liters of fresh water and I am trying to drink a lot,” he confesses.
These heat waves are “worrying”, but “what is worse is that anyone in politics is interested, or not interested enough,” says Marga, mother of two children, in Frankfurt.
In Dresde, in the east of the country, the shores of the Elba are drying and the river evaporates: the water level dropped to 64 cm, with respect to an annual average of 2 meters.
“Normally, we expect water levels like this only in August and September,” says Matthias Roeser, of the German river navigation association.
The heat also arrived in Belgium, where the 35 ° C and the Atomium, the famous Brussels stainless steel monument were exceeded, remained closed on Wednesday afternoon.
The Netherlands lived his first “tropical night” of the year, with temperatures above 20 ° C.
– “Factor” –
Although the heat waves in summer are not new, after decades of combustion of coal, oil and gas responsible for climate warming, cannulas occur sooner and later in the year, outside the boreal school holidays, from June to September.
In France, the thermometers exceeded 40 ° C on Tuesday in the south and 38 ° C in Paris, where the red alert was activated for the first time in five years.
The “most intense peak” has already passed, said the government, which registered two deaths as a result of heat -related diseases.
The Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, said that the country lived its second most warm June “since the beginning of the records in 1900.”
Spain also lived its most hot June ever registered, with an average temperature of 23.6 ºC, even superior to the normal average of July and August.
And Portugal beat a temperature record in a month of June, with the 46.6 ºC that were reached on Sunday in default, about 100 km east of Lisbon.
Given this scorching heat, the population does as it can to resist. «How do I endure? Not leaving home. You have to ventilate very soon with the windows and at 9 o’clock, close the blinds and telework with conditioned air, ”explains Manuel Méndez, a 46 -year -old journalist in Madrid.
«I put the conditioned air, it is expensive, but I do not take it into account, to live desirable. It’s like winter heating, ”he adds. “Something that 10 years ago was accessory, now it is first necessity.”
– «Energy Poverty» –
But not all families can afford those expenses. «We do not put the conditioned air because the homes of the middle class cannot either. Energy poverty affects us all, if you have to save for the end of the month, ”laments Julia Muñoz, a quality responsible for 60 years.
For this Wednesday, temperatures are expected to remain high in Spain, although in some points the rains and storms could begin, especially in the north and northeast of the country, especially in Catalonia, Aragon and the Pyrenees
A 75 -year -old man died in Córdoba, in Andalusia (South), which raises at least four the number of deaths related to heat in Spain in the last ten days.
Two other people died on Tuesday in Catalonia, where a forest fire swept more than 1,800 hectares, and a two -year -old boy died in the same region after staying several hours in a car parked in the sun.
The impact of the heat wave will take months. The 2003 and 2022 canicles caused the death respectively of around 70,000 and 61,000 people, mainly among the elderly.
According to scientists, extreme meteorological phenomena, such as heat waves and storms, are increasingly intense due to climate change.
Bursico/AB/BLB/ES/ZM/HGS/MB
