Keystone-SDA
After France and the Mediterranean periphery, northern Europe, not used to heat waves, transpires under the furnace with a heat peak in Germany on Wednesday. The authorities are increasing prevention messages.
(Keystone-ATS) In the most populated European country, the temperature must reach maximums between 34 and 38 ° C, and up to 40 ° C locally, like in Mannheim, in the southwest, according to the German meteorological service.
As for Belgium and the Netherlands, the heat wave arrived on Tuesday but with lower temperatures than in the south of the continent which has faced extreme conditions for several days.
“I’m going to work and sweat-I give lessons until noon and a half, then we will have meetings in the afternoon. I will not do sport and I will drink a lot, ”says Klaus Hirsch, teacher in Frankfurt (West).
Deformed asphalt
The German railways, the Deutsche Bahn, expect delays and traffic restrictions on certain lines, particularly in the west, more affected by heat.
On the motorways of this country where the automobile is queen, the asphalt of the road has distorted itself under the effect of temperatures, reports the German press.
In a symbolic and pragmatic gesture, militants of the collective Fridays for future will demonstrate for the first time after dark, from 10:00 p.m., in order to escape the furnace. These climatic activists will protest against the plans of the Conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz to bet more on gas, one of the fossil fuels source of warming of the planet.
This day of record temperatures for early July could end with particularly strong thunderstorms accompanied by hail and gusts of wind up to 120 km/h, in the northwest of the country-from Cologne to Hamburg.
“Tropical night” in the Netherlands
In Belgium, the atomium, an emblematic monument of stainless steel Brussels, will be closed Wednesday afternoon because of the heat.
In Wallonia schools that are not yet on vacation, unlike those of Flanders, teachers are trying to keep children cool using fans and air conditioners when available, organize water games and breaks in the shade.
The Netherlands have known their first “tropical night” of the year, with temperatures blocked above 20 ° C.
Humans and animals try to adapt to this wave of early warmth: a Dutch shepherd grazed his sheep much earlier than usual on Wednesday morning, in the center of the country, because “animals support the cold better than heat”, he explained to the local Omroep Gelderland media.
He did not mow his sheep, because “wool protects them from heat (…) They would catch sunburn much faster,” he added.
Inequalities
Residents of southern Europe hope for a little respite, after a month of June at record temperatures and several suffocating days which again highlighted inequalities in the face of heat.
“Around 3 am, we wake up saying ‘what is hot!’ We do not put the air conditioning because even in the middle -class households we cannot afford it, ”underlines Julia Munoz, 60, met in the Madrid metro.
The “most intense peak” has passed in France, according to the government. From Rome to Paris, the authorities draw up the first health assessments, even if a more global estimate of the deaths linked to this episode should take months.
“More than 300 people were taken care of in emergency by firefighters and two died following heat-related discomfort,” the French Minister of Ecological Transition said Agnès Pannier-Runacher on Wednesday.
In Italy, according to Simeu, bringing together doctors and nurses working in the emergency room, the heat wave has resulted in an increase of 10% in emergency arrivals in big cities like Milan, Florence or Naples, according to their press service contacted by AFP.
The heat waves of 2003 and 2022 had caused 70,000 and 61,000 premature deaths in Europe respectively, according to excess mortality studies. If the heat waves in summer are not new, after decades of combustion of coal, oil and gas responsible for warming, heat waves occur earlier and later in the year.
