Italy limits outdoor work as heatwave breaks records across Europe

The Guardian

4 days ago

Outdoor working has been banned during the hottest parts of the day in more than half of Italy's regions as an extreme heatwave that has smashed June temperature records in Spain and Portugal continues to grip large swathes of Europe.
The savage temperatures are believed to have claimed at least three lives, including that of a small boy who is thought to have died from heatstroke while in a car in Catalonia's Tarragona province on Tuesday afternoon.
In Palermo, Sicily, a 53-year-old woman died on Monday after fainting while walking along a street. She had reportedly suffered from a heart condition.
A 70-year-old man was reported to have drowned at a tourist resort close to Turin as intense heat gave way to storms and flash floods.
Admissions to hospital emergency units in parts of Italy have risen by 15-20% in recent days. The majority of patients are elderly people suffering from dehydration.
The heatwave, which has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from their homes in Turkey due to wildfires, has also forced the closure of schools in parts of France – as education unions warned the classrooms were dangerously hot for children and teachers.
Tourists, meanwhile, were confronted with closures of some of Europe's popular attractions. The top of the Eiffel Tower was shut as temperatures in Paris were poised to hit 38C (100.4F). In Brussels, the Atomium monument, famed for its giant stainless steel balls, closed early as temperatures inched towards 37C.
In Italy, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, two industrial hubs, announced they were stopping open-air work between 12.30pm and 4pm, joining 11 other regions – stretching from Liguria in the north-west to Calabria and Sicily in the south – that have imposed similar bans in recent days.
Local authorities were heeding advice from trade unions after the death of Brahim Ait El Hajjam, a 47-year-old construction worker, who collapsed and died while working on a building site close to Bologna, the capital of Emilia-Romagna, on Monday.
Two workers fell ill on Tuesday on a construction site near Vicenza in Veneto. One is reportedly in a coma.
The CGIL Bologna and Fillea CGIL unions said in a statement: 'While we wait to learn the actual cause of death, it is essential, during this terrible period, to promote a culture of safety.
'The climate emergency has clearly worsened the conditions for those who work outside every day and companies must give absolute priority to the protection of workers.'
The French national rail operator SNCF said train travel between France and Italy had been suspended for 'at least several days' after violent storms on Monday, AFP reported.
Cogne, a town in Italy's Aosta Valley that suffered severe flooding in June last year, has been cut off by a landslide.
The Spanish state meteorological agency, Aemet, said in a social media update that 'June 2025 smashed records' when it came to high temperature, with an average temperature of 23.6C, 0.8C above the previous hottest June in 2017.
The monthly average was also 3.5C higher than the average over the period from 1991 to 2020, it said.
The agency's comments come just days after Spain's highest ever June temperature of 46C was recorded in the Huelva province of Andalucía.
In Portugal, temperatures hit 46.6C in Mora, a town in the Évora district, in recent days, making it the highest June temperature ever recorded in the country, according to the Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere.
In France, the prime minister, François Bayrou, tried to calm anger at the heatwave crisis in French schools. More than 1,896 schools across the country were fully or partially closed on Tuesday.
In Paris, which was on maximum heatwave alert, parents were advised to keep their children at home on Tuesday and Wednesday. Some other towns, including Troyes and Melun, closed all their schools.
Bayrou said the education ministry would open talks with mayors on how to adapt school buildings, most of which are extremely poorly insulated.
As temperatures rose on Tuesday, some Paris teachers had nothing more than a water spray on their desk to repeatedly spritz children in classrooms in the hope of keeping cool.
Bayrou, who is facing a vote of no confidence on Tuesday, which he is expected to survive, has cancelled his meetings to monitor the situation in real time.
The hot weather front known in Germany as Bettina is expected to have nearly the entire country in its grip by Wednesday, with temperatures shooting toward the 40C mark and only the coasts and Alpine peaks spared the scorching temperatures.
Industry groups warned that schools, elderly care homes and hospitals were ill-prepared for the heatwave – an urgent issue they said must be addressed as the frequency of life-threatening weather increases.
Other cities across Europe are also experiencing higher than usual temperatures, including Zaragoza (39C), Rome (37C), Madrid (37C), Athens (37C), Brussels (36C), Frankfurt (36C), Tirana (35C) and London (33C).
Turkey's forestry minister, İbrahim Yumaklı, said firefighters had been called out to 263 wildfires across the country in recent days. Firefighters have also been tackling wildfires in parts of France and Italy, especially on the islands of Sardinia and Sicily.