A heat wave in Pakistan has triggered temporary school closures and power problems, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
“The debilitating heat wave will continue this month,” said Zaheer Ahmed Babar, a senior member of Pakistan’s Meteorological Department. Temperatures could exceed the monthly norm by six degrees Celsius, he said. It will exceed 40 degrees Celsius in many parts of the country this week.
In Punjab, the country’s most populous province, all schools will not be open this week because of the heat wave, and about 18 million students will stay at home. Some parts of the country are experiencing hours-long power cuts.
On Monday, it was reported that the abnormal heat wave is also observed in neighboring India. In Delhi and areas adjacent to the Indian capital, temperatures have exceeded the 47 degrees Celsius mark in the last 24 hours. Authorities have declared a red, maximum, level of weather danger in the capital, as well as in the states of Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, where the previous day the temperature ranged from 43 to 46 degrees Celsius.
The heat wave is expected to continue in India for at least five more days.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Tuesday that temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius will linger in many parts of the world for several days.
“Temperatures in North America, Asia and northern Africa and the Mediterranean will be above 40 degrees Celsius for an extended number of days this week,” Western media quoted excerpts from a WMO statement.
“And while the focus is on maximum daytime temperatures, nighttime temperatures pose the greatest risks to human health,” it notes.
Meanwhile, residents in most European countries faced abnormally hot weather on Tuesday. Italian health services warned of increased danger due to the weather in dozens of cities in the country. The highest temperature in the country is in Sardinia and Sicily, the thermometer in some areas rose above 45 degrees Celsius.
Italian media noted that on Tuesday in Italy recorded the highest level of electricity consumption for the year, which is associated, in particular, with the use of air conditioners.
Spain is also experiencing extremely hot weather, with the northeast of the country and Mallorca preparing for record high temperatures this week. Residents are being warned about the risk of forest fires.
Natural fires are already raging in several European countries, including Greece and Switzerland, which are spreading rapidly just because of the dry weather.
Ten departments in France declared an orange danger level on Tuesday due to the heatwave. In Corsica the temperature has risen above 41 degrees Celsius, in most communes of the Eastern Pyrenees the thermometer column does not fall below 40 degrees Celsius.
Residents of some American states continue to struggle with hot weather, in the capital of the state of Arizona, Phoenix, on Tuesday, as expected, will again break the temperature record – above 43.4 degrees Celsius. The city has been recording record highs for more than a week.
Countries in southern and central Europe are preparing for an abnormal heat wave expected to arrive there over the weekend due to the Cerberus anticyclone, the Associated Press reports.
“Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Poland are facing a powerful heatwave, with temperatures on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia potentially rising to 48 degrees Celsius – potentially the highest ever recorded in Europe,” the European Space Agency, which is tracking the Cerberus anticyclone that brought the abnormal heat to the region, said in a statement.
Temperatures across much of Italy are expected to exceed the 40 degrees Celsius mark over the weekend, with Spain expected to reach around 44 degrees Celsius.
In some countries, the authorities are taking measures to protect the population from the effects of abnormal heat. In particular, in Greece, the working hours of public institutions and the private sector have been changed. People are notified by SMS-messages about the danger of being on the street. The authorities of Cyprus urged the islanders to avoid forest areas because of the danger of fires.
At the same time, “Cerberus” is expected to soon hit the north of Europe. Thus, in the Arctic has already registered the day before the record high temperature in the history of observations – 28.8 degrees Celsius in the north of Norway. The previous record was recorded in 1964, when the thermometer reached 27.6 degrees Celsius.
The International Committee of the Red Cross urges tourists in Europe to exercise extreme caution and pay attention to the people around them, especially those who are most vulnerable to the effects of high temperatures, recalling that last summer Europe has already faced an abnormal heat wave, and then its victims for various reasons were about 60 thousand people.
