Spain: Red Cross volunteers distribute gazpacho soup, water and soft drinks to homeless people
Red Cross volunteers distributed gazpacho soup, water and soft drinks to homeless people in the southern city of Cordoba as Spain braces for the peak of the summer’s first heat wave.
Spain: Red Cross volunteers distribute gazpacho soup, water and soft drinks to homeless people
“A plate of food, our gazpacho, our milk – that’s what we have to be thankful for,” said Jose Miguel Sanchez, praising the street vendors who served him and his partner on a downtown street Thursday evening.
The 59-year-old man told Reuters that a woman let him stay in her house for several days to avoid the sun.
The weather service AEMET forecast that the heat wave will cover the widest area of Spain on Friday, with temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius in most regions and reaching 43 degrees Celsius in Cordoba and other parts of Andalusia, writes Reuters.
Some areas along the Mediterranean coast could climb even higher, up to 44C on Saturday, although temperatures will drop in most other regions, AEMET said.
In Madrid, authorities bused in homeless people from across the capital to take shelter in an air-conditioned center with food, drinks and a toilet area.
Authorities have issued health alerts and said there is a high risk of wildfires in most of Spain.
Large areas of Europe have been hit by increasingly damaging wildfire seasons, which experts say are caused by rising temperatures fueled by climate change.
Spain recorded nearly 11,000 deaths attributed to extreme heat last year, according to research led by the National Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), which tracked excess mortality rates with AEMET temperature data.
Source: www.mediafax.ro
