Europe hit by killer heatwave and floods

BUCHAREST, June 26 (AFP) Jun 26, 2007
A searing heatwave has killed at least 44 people across southern Europe while in Britain torrential rain claimed three lives and forced hundreds to flee a creaking dam.

Twenty-nine deaths have been blamed on the heat in Romania where temperatures on Tuesday hit 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit), four in Greece, three each in Italy and Albania and at least five in Bosnia, Croatia and Turkey.

Bucharest was Europe's hottest capital on Tuesday with temperatures at 45 Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) but a heat alert was sounded for much of the south of the country.

Ambulance services were beseiged with calls to help people fainting in the street, officials said. Fourteen people have died from the heat in the city over the past week, according to authorities who have set up more than 30 first aid tents in Bucharest alone to cope with the casualties.

Police have been handing out water in the street and the health ministry has warned the elderly and those with debilitating illnesses not to go out during the day.

After a winter with much lower than average snowfall and a dry spring, the heatwave has worsened fears that Romania could lose more than half of its normal cereal crop this year because of the weather.

Temperatures were expected to hit 44 Celsius (111 Fahrenheit) in Athens and the government urged the public to save power as electricity consumption hit new highs on Monday. The Greek military has suspended all exercises.

Temperatures in Bulgaria were expected to hit a new record 42 Celsius (107 Fahrenheit) on Tuesday and dozens of heat casualties have also been reported.

Authorities sprayed water on the tram rails to prevent them from buckling in the heat.

Authorities in seven Turkish provinces have given two or three days of leave to handicapped or pregnant civil servants, Anatolia news agency said.

Italian firefighters have dropped tanks of water from aircraft in a bid to control more than 30 forest fires after temperatures in the south topped 45 Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

The fires are concentrated in Sicily where they have been fanned by the Sirocco winds coming off the Mediterranean. At least three elderly people have died because of the heat across Italy, according to media reports, while fires have damaged homes near Palermo in Sicily and there have been electricity cuts across the south.

Northern Europe is meanwhile suffering from torrential downpours.

Three people have died in floods in England and hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes because torrential threatened to cause a dam to burst. A bridge collapsed in western England.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the country faced "a difficult situation" as flood defences struggled against the weather.

Authorities in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, told people living near Ulley Dam to leave their homes after receiving a warning that the walls could collapse. A section of the nearby main M1 motorway was also closed.

In nearby Sheffield, Royal Air Force helicopters airlifted people in flooded areas to safety. A 14-year-old boy was swept to his death in a swollen river and a 68-year-old man was killed as he crossed a flooded road.

In Hull, on the east coast, a man drowned after becoming trapped up to his neck in a drain on a flooded street. Emergency services battled to save the man, but could not free him as waters rose.

A 13 metre (40-feet) section of a bridge was washed away in Ludlow, central England, by a swollen river, severing a gas main and causing a number of minor explosions.

Forecasters have said that some parts of Britain had an entire month's worth of rain in just a few hours, just a week after similar downpours caused disruption.

[link to www.terradaily.com]