The storm on top of the country’s worst heatwave in years has piled pressure on organisers who have faced mounting complaints from parents and the withdrawal of the U.S. and British contingents.
Tag: heatwave
Amid US heatwave, woman dies after drinking 2 litres of water in 20 minutes
Amid heatwave conditions in the US, a 35-year-old woman in Indiana died after she consumed nearly two litres of water in four bottles in 20 minutes. The woman complained of a headache and felt lightheaded, before collapsing in the garage of her home.
A 35-year-old US woman died after she drank about two litres of water in a span of 20 minutes amid heatwave conditions in the country.
Her death was due to water toxicity, a condition caused when one drinks excessive amounts of water in a short period of time, and such cases can be fatal.
The victim, Ashley Summers, was out at Lake Freeman in Indiana over the Fourth of July weekend with her husband and two young daughters when she started feeling severely dehydrated, New York Post reported.
“Someone said she drank four bottles of water in 20 minutes,” her brother Devon Miller told WRTV. “I mean, an average water bottle is like 16 ounces, so that was 64 ounces that she drank in a span of 20 minutes. That’s half a gallon. That’s what you’re supposed to drink in a whole day.”
Summers later complained of headache and feeling lightheaded on the last day of their break. When the family returned home, the woman felt she could not drink water anymore and collapsed in the garage.
After Summers fell unconscious, her family rushed her to IU Health Arnett Hospital. But, she never came back to her senses, with the doctors declaring that she died due to water toxicity.
“My sister, Holly, called me, and she was just an absolute wreck. She was like, ‘Ashley is in the hospital. She has brain swelling, they don’t know what’s causing it, they don’t know what they can do to get it to go down, and it’s not looking good,’” said Miller, the woman’s brother.
South Korea scrambles to protect 40,000 scouts from brutal heatwave: ‘this is real chaos’
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Friday ordered his government to urgently provide air-conditioned buses and refrigerator trucks to help cool down the tens of thousands of attendees at the World Scout Jamboree, where hundreds have sought medical treatment amid a scorching heatwave.
The event, which congregates teenage scouts from around the world, is this year taking place outdoors in the seaside county of Buan, some 180km southwest of Seoul.
Aside from colourful tents and awnings, there is little natural shade around the 8.8 sq km of reclaimed tidelands on which the gathering is held, and where participants have pitched their tents on shipping pallets laid on the soggy ground.
To make matters worse, apart from the hot and humid weather, the jamboree has also been plagued by bugs, dirty toilets, inadequate food, and a lack of services.
Weather forecasts show the mercury is expected to hover around 35 degrees Celsius with no signs of cooling down in the coming weeks at a venue where the quadrennial world jamboree is under way until August 12, with some 43,000 scouts from 158 countries taking part.
By the end of the first day on Tuesday, 315 participants needed treatment for heat-related symptoms, 106 others for sunburn and 318 others complained of mosquito bites, the Chosun newspaper daily said.
A parent whose daughter was attending the jamboree urged organisers to resolve the issues quickly.
“My daughter is there right now and is telling us that it is a shame, everything is uncontrolled, no food, no way to protect them from the sun, this is real chaos!” they wrote on the Facebook page of the World Organisation of the Scout Movement (WOSM).
Yoon directed the government to “provide air-conditioned buses for scouts to stay cool at least for a while and refrigerator trucks to provide cold bottled water as much as necessary”, his presidential office said.He also ordered that meals at the event be “immediately improved” and tasked government ministries to resolve the problems at the site “with all their might”.
In addition to the scouts’ heat-induced health problems, hygiene issues including spoiled food, clogged toilets and inadequate shower facilities have also been raised. According to local news reports, eggs with mould were given to some participants, although they were not consumed before being discarded.
The WOSM on Friday said that over the past few days, an “extreme heatwave and humidity has caused some challenging conditions” for participants.
The South Korean organisers were increasing shaded areas and water around programme activities, making more air-conditioned spaces and transport available, deploying more doctors and nurses and increasing the availability of medical facilities and ambulances, it added.
Record heat waves illuminate plight of poorest Americans who suffer without air conditioning
As Denver neared triple-digit temperatures, Ben Gallegos sat shirtless on his porch swatting flies off his legs and spritzing himself with a misting fan to try to get through the heat. Gallegos, like many in the nation’s poorest neighbourhoods, doesn’t have air conditioning.
The 68-year-old covers his windows with mattress foam to insulate against the heat and sleeps in the concrete basement. He knows high temperatures can cause heat stroke and death, and his lung condition makes him more susceptible. But the retired brick layer, who survives on about US$1,000 a month, says air conditioning is out of reach.
“Take me about 12 years to save up for something like that,” he said. “If it’s hard to breath, I’ll get down to emergency.”
As climate change fans hotter and longer heat waves, breaking record temperatures across the US and leaving dozens dead, the poorest Americans suffer the hottest days with the fewest defences. Air conditioning, once a luxury, is now a matter of survival.
As Phoenix weathered its 27th consecutive day above 43 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, the nine who died indoors didn’t have functioning air conditioning, or it was turned off. Last year, all 86 heat-related deaths indoors were in uncooled environments.
“To explain it fairly simply: Heat kills,” said Kristie Ebi, a University of Washington professor who researches heat and health. “Once the heat wave starts, mortality starts in about 24 hours.”
It’s the poorest and people of colour, from Kansas City to Detroit to New York City and beyond, who are far more likely to face gruelling heat without air conditioning, according to a Boston University analysis of 115 US metro areas.
“The temperature differences … between lower-income neighbourhoods, neighbourhoods of colour and their wealthier, whiter counterparts have pretty severe consequences,” said Cate Mingoya-LaFortune of Groundwork USA, an environmental justice organisation. “There are these really big consequences like death … But there’s also ambient misery.”
Some have window units that can offer respite, but “in the dead of heat, it don’t do nothing,” said Melody Clark, who stopped on Friday to get food at a Kansas City, Kansas, nonprofit as temperatures soared to 38. When the central air conditioning at her rental house broke, her landlord installed a window unit. But it doesn’t do much during the day.
So the 45-year-old wets her hair, cooks outside on a propane grill and keeps the lights off indoors. At night she flips the box unit on, hauling her bed into the room where it’s located to sleep.
As far as her two teenagers, she said: “They aren’t little bitty. We aren’t dying in the heat … They don’t complain.”
Europe weather: Six dead after Balkans hit by powerful storm as heatwave bakes continent
The storm swept over Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Slovenia, which have in recent days experienced a spell of hot and dry weather.
Six people have died in a powerful storm which has battered much of the Balkans – while Southern Europe continues to face a searing heatwave.
Dozens of people have also been injured as a result of strong winds and heavy rain which have hit countries including Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Slovenia.
It is the second storm in two days to sweep over the Balkans, and according to meteorologists is particularly strong because of a recent spell of hot and dry weather in the region.
In Croatia’s capital, Zagreb, two people, a 50-year-old man and a 48-year-old man, died after they were hit by falling trees.
A firefighter in the eastern Croatian town of Tovarnik also died during the storm, his unit said, revealing no other details.
Another person is said to have died in Croatia, one in Slovenia and one in Bosnia.
Elsewhere in Zagreb, a 36-year-old man was severely injured when a construction crane collapsed, the police said.
Serbia’s police said emergency crews had saved 40 people and put out 20 fires caused by thunder and lightning.
A 12-year-old girl was taken to hospital after a tree fell on her in the northern city of Novi Sad, doctors said.
Authorities have warned that more storms are possible in the next few days before the next wave of very hot weather begins in the region.
It comes as Southern Europe continues to face a scorching heatwave.
Firefighters from across the European Union are heading to Greece, as the country battles wildfires for another day.
Teams from Poland, Romania and Slovakia are due in Greece later on.
Israel has also pledged to send two firefighting planes, on top of the four Italian and French planes in use near Athens.
US weather: flash floods in the northeast, heatwave intensifies
An extreme heatwave peaked in the western United States on Sunday, with temperatures reaching 128 Fahrenheit (53 Celsius) in the California desert, while flash flooding continued to menace the Northeast, killing at least five people.
Nearly a quarter of the U.S. population fell under extreme heat advisories, partly due to a stubborn heat dome that has been parked over western states. While baking parts of the country, the heat dome has also helped generate heavy rains in the Northeast, a pattern expected to continue for days if not weeks, according to the National Weather Service.
In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia, downpours and flash flooding over the weekend killed at least five people. Nearly 7 inches (17 cm) of rain fell on the area in 45 minutes late Saturday, Upper Makefield Township Fire Chief Tim Brewer told a press conference, claiming five lives as vehicles were swept away. Two children, one aged 2 and the other 9 months, remained missing.
“We continue to look for the two children,” Brewer said. “We are not going to give up regardless. The weather is a factor but at this point we are going to continue the operations and have already set things in motion for tomorrow as well.”
New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Sunday urged residents in her state to avoid travel until the rain passes, saying that “your car can go from a place of safety to a place of death” if swept up in a flash flood.
The rains were expected to ease on Monday but nonetheless created havoc throughout much of the Northeast in recent days, with Vermont in particular reporting catastrophic flooding in its capital Montpelier.
The heat warnings spread from the Pacific Northwest, down through California, through the Southwest and into the Deep South and Florida.
Death Valley, California, officially reached 128 F (53 C) on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service, although the famed temperature display sign outside the Furnace Creek Visitors Center showed 133 F (56 C).
Expecting to see history made, about two dozen tourists gathered around the sign and cheered on Sunday when the digital display of 132 ticked up to 133. People snapped pictures while U.S. National Park rangers stood by in case anyone succumbed to the heat.
“It’s my first time being here so I feel it would be really cool to be here for the hottest day ever on Earth for my first time,” said Kayla Hill, 24, of Salt Lake City, Utah.
Phoenix marked its 17th consecutive day over 110 F (43 C), reaching a high of 115 F, and is forecast to tie the June 1974 record of 18 straight days over 110 F on Monday and extend the record for at least another week.
The National Weather Service said widespread record-breaking high temperatures are likely to be recorded across the Southwest, in the western Gulf Coast and also in south Florida.
Temperatures between 100 F and 110 F are forecast for portions of the Pacific Northwest. That could be particularly dangerous for an area unaccustomed to excessive heat, as many homes do not have central air conditioning. Meanwhile southern Europe is enduring a punishing heatwave.
Scientists say fossil fuel-driven climate change is heralding more extreme weather like that seen in the U.S. in recent days, warning that the world needs to drastically cut carbon emissions to prevent its catastrophic effects.