Prague at standstill after huge power outage hits the Czech Republic
Prague 's entire subway network was inoperative starting at noon, the capital city's transport authority said. But the A and C lines were restored in about 15 minutes while the B line was back in about 30 minutes, it said.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala said in a post on X that the outage hit other parts of the country and authorities were dealing with the problem. The CEPS power grid operator acknowledged problems in northern and eastern Czech Republic.
Most trams on the right bank of the Vltava River in Prague were halted, while the left bank was not affected. Some trains near Prague and other regions could not operate.
There were no immediate reports that Václav Havel Airport Prague, the city's international airport, was hit by the power outage.
It was not immediately clear what caused the issue but officials ruled out a cyber attack.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Bournemouth's pier-to-pier swim cancelled due to safety concerns
A charity swimming event has been cancelled due to concerns over Bournemouth Pier-to-Pier Swim was set to take place on Saturday but the British Heart Foundation, who organise the event, said it made the difficult decision to cancel after consulting with water safety Choudhry from the charity said forecasted wind and weather conditions "would make for a challenging and unsafe swim".She added that all registered participants will have their entry automatically transferred to next year's event, on the 27 June 2026. Participants will also receive guidance on how to either refund or transfer any funds already raised ahead of the 2025 annual 1.4 miles swim between Boscombe and Bournemouth piers in one of Europe's biggest charity open water swimming than 1,000 people took part in last year's swim raising £270,000. You can follow BBC Dorset on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Ships forced to leave cargo behind as heatwave hits one of Europe's longest rivers
Europe 's second-longest river is experiencing unusually low water levels in Hungary, severely impacting shipping, agriculture, and local ecosystems amidst an early summer heatwave. The critical situation on the River Danube has forced cargo ships to operate at a mere 30-40 per cent capacity, leaving more than half their cargo behind, according to Attila Bencsik, deputy president of the Hungarian Shipping Association. He warned that shipping rates could surge by as much as 100 per cent due to surcharges imposed when vessels cannot sail fully loaded. Temperatures in Budapest peaked at 35 degrees Celsius this week, as a heatwave across Europe has been linked to at least eight deaths. While low water levels have been recorded on the Danube previously, they typically occur later in the year, in August, noted Attila Szegi, a deputy spokesman for the Hungarian General Directorate of Water Management. Szegi said that rain was expected in the Danube catchment area next week, which should lead to a slight rise in water levels and an improvement in the shipping situation. The Hungarian state meteorological institute HungaroMet said that rainfall in June was only 17 per cent of the average for that month, making this June the driest since 1901. "June is one of the most rainy months of the year in our climate, and now we have this low water level," Gyorgy Matavovszki said, as he stopped with his kayak on a sandbank at Szob, a town north of Budapest. "It has its beauty because the water is clear, it is easy to paddle in it ..., but it is worrying." The Vistula river was at a record low in Warsaw, and the Rhine in Germany was also unusually low. Michał Sikora, a meteorologist and hydrologist at Poland's IMGW, said that the Vistula River reached a record low level of 19 centimetres (7.48 inches) on Friday, adding that it is expected to decline further in the coming days, possibly to below 15 centimetres.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘A war of the truth': Europe's heatwaves are failing to spur support for climate action
'It's just too much, isn't it?' says Julie, a retiree in Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, about the 42C (107.6F) heat that her brother had seen scorch Spain last week. The former local government worker has felt summers get hotter over her lifetime and says she 'couldn't stand' such high heat herself. But like many who experienced Europe's first heatwave of the summer, Julie does not sound overly alarmed. She worries about climate breakdown for young people, but is not concerned about herself. She thinks more climate action would be nice, but does not know what can be done about it. She does not have much faith in the government. 'It's like everything else,' she says. 'I think it's all too little, too late.' As heatwaves engulfed large swathes of Europe and North America last week – the latest in a stream of deadly extremes made worse by fossil fuel pollution – green groups are frustrated that increasingly violent weather has not spurred the urgent support for climate action they had expected. Governments across the rich world continue to roll back policies to stop the planet from heating, while far-right parties that deny climate science lash out at environment rules even as disasters unfold. Their voters, while rarely climate deniers themselves, seem to tolerate their energetic attacks on environmental policy, if not support them. The views of someone like Julie – who declined to reveal her voting preference – sound similar to what is seen across the country, said Ed Hodgson, an analyst at the research group More in Common who has run focus groups on climate action. Polls taken over the second-last weekend of June show most people in the UK found the previous week of weather too hot; are worried it will get hotter; and hold the climate crisis at least partly responsible. But the nonprofit also found the share of people concerned about climate change has fallen over the last year, dipping from 68% to 60%. Support for the UK's target to hit net zero emissions by 2050 fell even further, plunging from 62% to 46%. 'The issue is really that there are so many other concerns now,' said Hodgson, citing the organisation's data tracking the top issues that people face each week. 'Three years ago you'd have the cost of living first, then the National Health Service, and then immigration and climate – those two would compete for third place. Now, when we do those polls, climate is near the bottom of the list.' The contradictions are visible in towns such as Stanford-le-Hope, where Julie lives, which is among the few already represented in parliament by the rightwing populist Reform UK. A YouGov poll last month found just over half of Reform voters wanted a heatwave in the coming weeks. The party, which has promised to scrap the net zero target and 'unlock Britain's vast oil and gas reserves', is projected to win eight of the 10 most flood-prone constituencies at the next general election, according to an analysis in May by the NGO Global Witness and Round Our Way, a campaign group. Far-right parties across mainland Europe have been even more vocal in using the heatwave to take aim at climate policy, even as blazing wildfires force thousands to flee their homes and doctors warn of widespread excess deaths. In Spain, where temperatures reached highs of 46C on Tuesday, the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, mocked a government promise to regulate fear-based advertising by asking if they were also going to 'ban the propaganda of climate religion'. In Italy, which has limited outdoor work during the hottest parts of the day in most of the country, the Lega party MP Claudio Borghi said: 'Climate change has always existed, the causes are anything but clear, and the solutions are contrary to what … is correct.' Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland co-chair Alice Weidel shared a social media post from a climate sceptic that compared the heat on Tuesday to slightly hotter temperatures on the same day in 1952, as the country was 'clearing away the rubble of war'. The post took a swipe at the World Economic Forum, the German public broadcaster and the Green party. The biggest political row over the heat erupted in France, where the National Rally figurehead, Marine Le Pen, called for a 'major' air conditioning plan – one week after the party failed in its parliamentary push to halt new wind and solar projects. In an opinion article in Le Figaro on Thursday, the interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, a conservative, called to stop support for renewable energy and expand France's nuclear energy sector. The proposal earned rebukes from the ecology minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who described it as 'petty politics' that would write Algeria a check for oil, and the former prime minister Gabriel Attal, who called it an 'incomprehensible' misstep. 'As we endure several days of an unprecedented heatwave, we are witnessing a troubling resurgence of anti-science scepticism,' he said. Some far-right parties have focused their attention on old-school climate denial, while others have moved from questioning the science to aggressively campaigning against solutions. 'I don't think the extreme heat is being weaponised, but the efforts to limit it certainly are,' said Ciarán Cuffe, a co-chair of the European Green party and former Irish environment minister. He added that Le Pen's call for more air conditioning – which he said should be one solution among many – may even represent a shift in strategy. 'It's a recognition that these heatwaves are happening, and that they are extreme.' The paradox is that far-right parties bashing green rules are polling well above 20% in several European countries, even though the share of people who deny climate science is typically in single digits. In the UK, pollsters find just 6% of Reform voters list environmental policy as a reason for voting for the party, according to More in Common. That said, the level of threat perception among their voters is much higher than in other parties, said Hodgson. 'They see threats around them and think we need a strong response. So it makes sense for politicians to campaign around those moments.' Climate campaigners have argued that the far right's success in dominating the climate narrative is weakening support for action and providing centrist parties cover to scrap green policies, even if it has failed to create a widespread backlash against green policy. 'The far right has a strategy but everyone else doesn't,' said Luisa Neubauer, a German activist from Fridays for Future, which staged its first night-time protest against climate inaction outside the German economy ministry on Wednesday, as a result of the high heat. Too many people in power or with platforms 'have not yet understood that we're in a war of language – and a war of the truth – about the climate,' she added. 'And too few of us are actively standing in the way of that.'
