‘Record heat’, wildfires in Italy’s southern regions
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Italy’s southern regions have seen record heat in terms of both intensity and duration, Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci said in an urgent briefing to the Lower House on Thursday.
Temperatures have been above 40 degrees Celsius, with “peaks of up to 46 and 48 degrees, above any previous historical record,” he added, referring to the series of heatwaves to have gripped central and southern regions in recent weeks, with Sicily particularly badly affected.
Right now, he said the situation concerning power supplies in Sicily “seems to be clearly improving compared to the past few days”, reporting that less than 15,000 consumers were currently without electricity, particularly in the Catania area.
The island region has been plagued by blackouts in the last few days due to a combination of high electricity consumption to power air conditioning units and fans, wildfires and melting of underground cables in the heat.
On fighting the wildfires that have been blazing in several parts of the south, particularly in Sicily and Puglia, Musumeci said that on Tuesday “several critical situations occurred in the operational management of requests for air support, in particular due to the strong ascending and descending air currents”.
“The Sicilian Region’s air fleet was unable to operate in the province of Trapani and Palermo for most of the day due to the lack of the necessary minimum safety conditions.
“In Calabria, due to the extremely high temperatures on the runway of Lamezia Terme airport, no aircraft could take off for several hours”.
