A ball of fire over Italy: the heat wave which is expected to hit the peninsula and its islands in the coming days could bring down historic temperature records. The Ministry of Health has issued a red alert notice, valid all weekend, for several central cities, from Rome to Bologna, from Florence to Pescara, where the thermometer should reach 36/37°C from Sunday ( 39°C felt), before the peak expected at the start of the week.
“One of the most intense heat waves of all time”
The red alert “indicates an emergency situation with possible negative effects on the health of healthy and active people but especially on that of groups at risk such as the elderly, young children and people suffering from chronic diseases”, warns the Ministry. According to the daily Il Messaggerotwo amateur footballers aged 48 and 51 died on Friday evening, after illness probably due to the heat, during matches in the Naples region (south).
On Sunday, 16 cities will be on red alert throughout Italy. The Italian Meteorological Center (CMI) said in a press release that it feared “the most intense heat wave of the summer but also one of the most intense of all time”.
In Rome, temperatures could rise to 40°C on Monday, then 42 or 43°C on Tuesday, shattering the previous record of 40.5°C recorded in the capital in August 2007. The record could also be broken in Sardinia. of 48.8°C dating from August 11, 2021, the highest temperature ever measured in Europe. Sardinia and Sicily could experience “potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded” on the Old Continent, the European Space Agency has warned. Temperatures could therefore exceed seasonal averages by 10°C.
18,000 heat deaths in 2022 in Italy
Civil Protection issued fire alert bulletins over much of Sardinia from Sunday, as well as for eastern Sicily, between Messina and Catania. The north of the peninsula should not be spared with 38°C expected Tuesday in Milan.
Health and medical structures are already mobilized throughout the country to take care of the most fragile people suffering in particular from dehydration and to intervene in nursing homes with the elderly.
In 2022, heat in Europe killed 60,000 people, including 18,000 in Italy, the most affected country, according to a study published Monday in Nature Medicine.