Italy placed on high alert to heat after record temperatures in Sicily
A man cools off in a public fountain in Messina in Sicily where record temperatures have been recorded.
AFP - GIOVANNI ISOLINO
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Italy is still in the heat of the moment.
This Friday, August 13, the Ministry of Health placed 13 cities on alert 3 because of high temperatures, that is to say the maximum level.
They will be 17 this Saturday.
The south of the country is particularly affected.
Of the 500 fires to be brought under control for firefighters in recent hours, 230 were in Sicily.
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With our correspondent in Palermo,
Cécile Debarge
It is a cloak of stifling heat, wet, sticky, which fell for several days on the south of Italy.
Particularly in Calabria and Sicily where fires have increased in recent hours.
Thursday evening, the village of Petralia Soprana, perched on the heights of Madonie, was urgently evacuated, surrounded by flames which had already devoured all the surrounding countryside.
Hundreds of residents have left their homes and a dozen have been taken to hospital after being poisoned.
"
Hell is in Sicily
"
These last hours, nothing denies this title of the Italian press following the European heat record of
48.8 ° C recorded in Syracuse
: "
Hell is in Sicily
".
This Friday and for the whole weekend, regional civil protection kept the risk of fire and those linked to high temperatures at the maximum level of alert.
The Lucifer anticyclone, which arrived from the African coast, should then move up towards the center and then the north of the country.
More than 40 degrees are expected for this weekend of August 15 in Tuscany, Lazio and Emilia-Romagna.
► To read also: Global warming: in Italy, the Planpincieux glacier threatens to collapse
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