Lisbon, Portigal/Madrid, Spain
Reuters
Millions of people in parts of Portugal and Spain opted to stay inside on Tuesday on the second day of a heatwave sweeping the Iberian Peninsula during peak tourist season that has spurred the spread of wildfires.
People queue in the sun outside Almudena Cathedral as they wait to enter the Royal Palace during the third heatwave of the summer in Madrid, Spain, on 8th August, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Susana Vera
In Portugal, authorities declared some 120 municipalities in the north and central areas of the country’s interior, as well as in the popular holiday destination of Algarve in the south, at maximum risk of wildfires due to the scorching heat.
A view shows damaged residential buildings in the aftermath of Storm Hans in Valdres, near Oslo, Norway, on 8th August, 2023. PICTURE: NTB/Cornelius Poppe via Reuters
STORM CONTINUES TO SWEEP OVER THE NORDICS, CAUSING LANDSLIDES
Norwegian emergency services evacuated hundreds of people in various locations on Tuesday, the second day that heavy rains caused landslides, with the risk of more, as a storm sweeps over the Nordics.
Strong winds, intense rain and landslides hit parts of the Nordic region, knocking out power lines, flooding villages and bringing public transport to a standstill in the worst-affected areas.
The storm, which has been called “Hans,” hit Sweden late on Sunday and reached Norway on Monday, with parts of Denmark and Finland also affected.
In southern Norway, floods and landslides blocked roads and halted key train services.
In the town of Valdres a landslide took down a house, but no one was injured, and in Hemsedal a small house came floating down a river.
On Monday, a Swedish passenger train derailed due to the weather, injuring three people.
– MARIE MANNES, Stockholm, Sweden/Reuters
High temperatures, combined with strong winds, hampered efforts by more than 1,000 firefighters to extinguish a fire that started on Saturday near Odemira in the Alentejo region, but has since spread southward to the Algarve, forcing the evacuation of at least 1,400 people.
Weather agency IPMA also put three districts in the northeast on red alert for high temperatures.
On Monday, thermometers in the central towns of Portalegre and Santarem broke five-year local records at 42.1 Celsius and 46.4 degrees respectively, the latter just short of the national record of 47.3 degrees set in August, 2003.
In Lisbon, residents and tourists saw some respite as temperatures dropped to 31 degrees from Monday’s more than 41 degrees, and were expected to remain around that level for the next few days.
In Madrid, visitors waiting in line to enter the Prado museum were sprayed with water by employees.
“When you work on the street, it gets a bit tougher on hotter days,” 26-year-old usher Alberto told Reuters as he spritzed his neck with water.
Steve Allen, a tourist from Canada’s British Columbia, said he coped with the heat by trying to stay in the shade, using the subway, eating ice cream and drinking chilled water.
Spain’s weather agency AEMET said the southern province of Cordoba could see temperatures of up to 44 degrees on Tuesday and warned the heatwave would reach its peak on Wednesday, affecting almost the entire country.
According to overwhelming scientific consensus, heatwaves are becoming more frequent, intense and spread out across seasons due to climate change.
