Extreme heat in Europe: The Times calls Rome the “City of Hell”

From «Eternal» to «Infernal» little is needed or rather those extra degrees above the average that are yielding are enough Rome and many other cities unlivable due to the heat emergency in Italy. This is how you defined our capital Rome ironically, but not too much the British Times newspaper. The Trevi Fountain and many others in the city have been oases for visiting tourists this week. And high temperatures – expected to peak today – are not expected to subside until at least July 22 (here we give you some advice to protect yourself from high temperatures).

The great heat in Italy is causing various problems and not only for tourists. In Lodi a worker died on 11 July while working on a road construction site and in Florence last week the same happened to a cleaner. The anticyclone arrived this weekend, surnamed Charon, will bring record temperatures that will reach 43°C in the shade in Rome and 48 in Sicily and Sardinia.

But the heat wave is not just about Italy. To Athens the thermometer marks 41 degrees and the city has taken exceptional measures, choosing to close the Acropolis in the hot hours for the third day in a row. Not only that, the Red Cross is ready to help tourists and is distributing 30,000 bottles of water free of charge a day.

Tourists are easily exposed to risks, spending many hours outdoors and often standing in line to access the sites to visit. And the crowds thronged at the fountains of Rome made the Times the owner Rome “Infernal City”. It is not the only foreign newspaper, Italy’s record temperatures are on the front pages of many newspapers today, the day in which the red dot concerns 16 cities. The BBC opens the site with the news of the alert caused by theheat wave affecting the art cities of Rome, Florence and Bologna. CNN recommends its readers to pay attention to news on Italian weather conditions. And in the meantime the European Space Agency has warned that it could soon break the record for the hottest temperature – which was recorded last year in Syracuse, with 48.8°C.