1 in 2 visitors are affected by the heat at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, which sits on a rocky hill with little shade Photo: Portal Visitors are affected by the heat at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, which is on a rocky hill and offers little shade Photo: Portal
Red alerts have been issued for 16 cities across Italy as extreme heat persists in southern Europe.
The warnings, which indicate risks even for healthy people, will apply to tourist locations such as Rome, Florence and Bologna in the coming days.
In Europe, too, thermometers are likely to show high temperatures next week as another heatwave looms.
Periods of intense heat occur as part of natural weather patterns, but are becoming more frequent, more intense, and longerlasting around the world due to global warming.
The Italian government has advised anyone staying in areas where the red alert is in effect on Saturday to avoid direct sunlight between 11am and 6pm, paying particular attention to the elderly or vulnerable.
In Rome, tour guide Felicity Hinton, 59, told the BBC high temperatures combined with overcrowding made walking the city a “nightmare”.
“It’s always hot in Rome, but it’s been a lot longer than usual,” she said.
A gondolier in Venice told the BBC it was so hot it was unbearable inside the city’s famous gondolas.
“The heat…gets up in the legs, in the feet, it really burns…sometimes tourists wince in pain when they touch it.”
Meanwhile, Greece has reached temperatures of 40°C and more in the last few days. Athens’ Acropolis the country’s top tourist attraction was closed to protect visitors during the hottest hours on Friday and Saturday.
Matt Kennedy, 51, of Vancouver, Canada, and his family were among the last tourists to visit the Acropolis before it closed.
“It was amazing up there. But along the way we saw people passing out, receiving medical attention, sitting in the back of ambulances and even throwing up from heat stroke,” he told the BBC.
2 of 2 Hellenic Red Cross volunteers hand out water bottles in Athens on Friday Photo: Portal via BBC Hellenic Red Cross volunteers hand out water bottles in Athens on Friday Photo: Portal via BBC
The Red Cross provides water and first aid at the site, which is set on a rocky hillside and offers little shade for visitors.
There are also fears that the risk of wildfires is increasing, particularly in areas with strong winds. In the course of another exceptional heat wave, massive forest fires broke out in Greece in 2021.
A forest fire on the Spanish island of La Palma forced the evacuation of at least 500 people, the Portal news agency reported.
The fire broke out in El Pinar de Puntagorda early Saturday, destroying at least 11 homes, Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo said.
High temperatures also hit central parts of Europe, including Germany and Poland.
The Czech Republic’s weather agency issued a warning that temperatures could surpass 38C over the weekend, which is unusually high for the country.
High temperatures of up to 47C are expected in parts of southern Spain, southeastern Italy and possibly Greece later in the week. Some city records are likely to be broken.
In the UK, however, heavy rain and gusty winds are expected in parts of England on Saturday.
Meteorologists said it’s because the southward shift of the jet stream, which was bringing warmer weather to Europe, also drew lowpressure areas to the UK bringing with it unstable, colder weather.
The current heat wave in Europe was named Cerberus by the Italian Meteorological Society, in honor of the threeheaded monster that appears in Hell, the first part of Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy”.
Italian meteorologists are warning that the next heatwave dubbed Charon after the ferryman who carried souls to the underworld in Greek mythology could push temperatures to over 40C next week.
Heat waves are also occurring in parts of the United States, China, North Africa and Japan.
Last month was the hottest June on record, according to the European Union’s climate monitoring service, Copernicus.
The hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe was 48.8 °C in Sicily in August 2021.
Extreme weather events as a result of global warming are “sadly becoming the new normal,” warned the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).