Italy's deadly heatwave could push temperatures close to European record
A blistering and deadly heat wave in Italy this week could break records, with temperatures predicted to soar past 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) in some parts of the country.
The Italian Meteorological Society has named the heat wave Cerberus after the three-headed monster that features in Dante’s Inferno as a guard to the gates of hell. “The earth has a high fever and Italy is feeling it firsthand,” Luca Mercalli, head of the Italian Meteorological Society.
The heat has already claimed at least one life. A 44-year-old road construction worker died in hospital on Tuesday after he collapsed by the side of the road in the northern Italian city of Lodi, according to politician Nicola Fratoianni, who has petitioned for regulations to protect workers during the ongoing heat wave.
“We are facing a wave of abnormal heat at unbearable levels. Perhaps it should be the case that during the hottest hours all useful precautions are taken to avoid tragedies like the one that happened today in Lodi,” Fratoianni wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
In Rome, several tourists collapsed due to heat stroke on Tuesday and early Wednesday, including an unnamed British tourist who passed out in front of the ancient Roman Colosseum on Tuesday, according to Rome’s civil protection head Giuseppe Napolitano.
The high temperatures, which extend over swaths of Europe, are caused by a “heat dome” – created when an area of high pressure stays over the same place for an extended period of time, trapping hot air underneath.
Very high temperatures in central and southern Italy are predicted for Friday, when the capital could see record-breaking temperatures between 40 and 45 degrees Celsius (104 to 113 Fahrenheit).
Italy’s Health ministry has issued a red alert (meaning “risk of death”) in 27 cities this week, including Rome, Florence and Bologna.
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