Yahoo Finance Heat Wave Sears London and Paris as Greece Battles Wildfires
(Bloomberg) -- Heat wave conditions are baking north European capitals, while further south Greek firefighters are tackling dozens of blazes across the Mediterranean nation.
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London and Paris are sweltering in the hottest conditions this year, with temperatures forecast to reach 29C on Wednesday, according to a report by Maxar Technologies Inc. Berlin will top 30C.
The yellow health alerts for hot weather issued for much of England come as junior doctors strike, raising concerns about older citizens. The heat will transition to cooler-than-normal conditions as July begins.
Climate change is putting 2024 on track to be the hottest year on record, with the death toll from searing temperatures and extreme weather events climbing from India and Saudi Arabia to the US and Brazil. Greece has so far been at the epicenter Europe’s summer heat, with the country recording its hottest June day earlier this month.
Strong winds and high temperatures have put the Greek authorities under increasing pressure over the past two weeks, with fire services tackling 33 new blazes in the 24 hours through Wednesday afternoon.
New fires broke out on Wednesday across Greece, including a blaze in Aspropirgos, west of Athens, which the fire service brought under control. Authorities alerted people for a potential evacuation as another fire flared close to Rethimno city in Crete, where more than 130 firefighters worked overnight to control a separate blaze.
On Wednesday afternoon, the authorities ordered an evacuaction after a forest fire broke out near Orthovouni in the Trikala region. Firefighters were also trying to contain a blaze close to Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city.
Greece’s meteorological service is forecasting temperatures to climb as high as 40C (104F) on Wednesday, while winds could reach up to 61 kilometers per hour in the Aegean Sea. That’s put Athens plus the islands of Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria, as well as Crete, on very high alert for wildfires.
In Switzerland, Lake Constance is on the second-highest alert level for flooding after storms generated more heavy rainfall on already saturated soil. There’s also a moderate danger of flooding for Lake Geneva.
That follows violent storms over the weekend, triggering a landslide that buried part of an Alpine village in the southeast, with at least one fatality. The floods also damaged a stretch of a key highway connecting the country to Italy.
--With assistance from Eamon Akil Farhat.
(Updates with new fires in Greece in fifth paragraph)
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