23 Cities in Italy 'Red Alert' Heat Wave

ILLUSTRATION UNSPLASH/Seongil Park

JAKARTA - The Italian Ministry of Health predicts that 23 of the 27 major cities in the country will be in full alert status to prepare for the highest level of danger due to the heat wave on Sunday, August 2.

Air temperatures are expected to continue to rise as the fourth heat wave hits Italy this year.

A total of 11 cities were designated as full alert status on Friday (31/7), namely Bolzano, Campobasso, Civitavecchia, Firenze, Frosinone, Latina, Perugia, Rieti, Rome, Turin, and Viterbo.

As reported by ANTARA from ANSA, on Saturday, August 1, the number increased to 19 cities with the addition of Bologna, Brescia, Cagliari, Milan, Naples, Pescara, Venice, and Verona to the list.

Meanwhile, Catania, Genoa, Palermo, and Trieste are projected to face the same alert status on Sunday (2/7).

The full alert status or "Level 3 Warning" indicates an emergency of prolonged heat waves with high risks to health, even for young people who are in good health.

This year's heat wave is suspected to have caused a number of deaths. In addition to forest fires and drought, this extreme weather also poses a major problem for businesses, especially in the agricultural sector.

This hot summer has even forced farmers to speed up the harvest of grapes in the Piedmont region.

Meanwhile, forest fires have reoccurred in the Gargano area, Puglia, where a large fire near the coastal town of Peschici forced the Coast Guard to evacuate hundreds of people by sea last weekend.

Scientists say the climate crisis caused by human-induced greenhouse gas emissions will trigger a variety of extreme weather events, such as heat waves, droughts, severe storms, and floods, to occur more frequently and exacerbate their intensity.

Although there are many sources of greenhouse gases that trigger global warming, the main driving factor is the use of fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal, whose sales continue to generate huge profits for the world's giant energy companies.