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WEATHER REPORT
Countries must deal with health risks of more frequent heatwaves: UN
By Agn�s PEDRERO
Geneva (AFP) July 1, 2015


Central Asia hit with record-breaking heatwave
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan (AFP) July 1, 2015 - Turkmenistan reported its hottest June on record Wednesday, as a heat wave envelops former Soviet Central Asia.

"June 2015 was the hottest June since 1891 when records began. Daytime temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius in the shade 16 times," a spokeswoman at Turkmenistan's state meteorological service in the capital Ashgabat told AFP Wednesday.

She noted that Tuesday, when temperatures reached 47.2 degrees celsius, was the hottest June day in Ashgabat in the recorded history of the energy-rich country.

Many Muslims fasting for the Ramadan holy month in the secluded Caspian state have taken time off work and are shutting themselves away in air conditioned rooms, one observant Muslim who did not wish to be named told AFP.

In Kazakhstan temperatures, while set to vary in the coming week, remain very high in the southern regions of the country.

"In the afternoon the streets are empty," said Shafarat Sataeva, 72, from the southern region of Kyzylorda, where temperatures reached 42 degrees Celsius in the shade on Wednesday, the highest anywhere in the country.

In Tajikistan over 50 people including three Russian soldiers stationed at Russia's military base in the country drowned in mountain rivers and lakes as they sought to cool themselves.

The country's meteorological service said temperatures are expected to pass 40 degrees Celsius in the capital Dushanbe and warned of mudflows from high levels of glacial melt in the mountainous country.

The UN urged countries Wednesday to create preparedness systems to counter the health risks of heatwaves, as they become ever more frequent and intense, and dangerous, due to climate change.

For the first time, the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) and its World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have joined forces to create guidelines for experts and authorities for how to lower the health risks of heatwaves like the ones currently scorching Asia and Europe.

"Heatwaves have emerged as an important hydrometeorological hazard and will remain so, given projected changes in the frequency of extreme heat events associated with human-induced climate change," the text warns.

The main recommendation? To create heatwave warning systems that highlight the health hazards and inform people what they should do to protect themselves.

Such systems exist in a range of developed countries, like France, which introduced an alert system after it was hit hard by a 2003 heatwave that caused tens of thousands of deaths across Europe.

But elsewhere, such systems are uncommon, Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum of WHO told AFP, voicing concern about places like Pakistan, where more than 1,200 people have died amid soaring temperatures in the south of the country.

That crisis came a month after neighbouring India suffered its own deadly heatwave which killed more than 2,000 people.

"It is common to have weather forecasts tell people what the temperature is going to be, but in many countries they have not looked at what that means to health," he said.

- Heatwaves in unexpected places -

The aim of the new guidelines, he said, was to "support countries to put into place this kind of system."

WHO and WMO are calling on countries, even those not traditionally hit by extreme temperatures, to put in place heatwave preparedness systems, allowing them to quickly alert the population to dangers and put hospitals on standby for an influx of patients suffering from heat-related ailments.

"Climate change is not only likely to bring about changes in the frequency and duration of heatwaves in 'core' heatwave regions but also an alteration of the geographical distribution of heatwave disasters," WMO and WHO warned in their guidelines, based on several previous scientific studies.

This means heatwaves may occur in places they have not happened previously, they said.

They also warn that urbanisation has exacerbated the problem, since cities tend to be hotter than elsewhere, putting vulnerable populations like the elderly and chronically ill more at risk.

Europe, which was caught off guard by the severity of the 2003 heatwave, is once again struggling with sweltering temperatures.

The ongoing heatwave, enveloping Britain, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and northern Italy, is expected to last several days and has already seen the mercury rise as high as 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

There is no universal definition of a heatwave -- they are declared at varying temperatures depending on the usual climate in the region.

In general though, they should be declared for a period of unusually high temperatures both during the day and at night lasting for at least two days, according to the WMO and WHO guidelines.


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WEATHER REPORT
Tennis players and pilgrims swelter as heatwave hits Europe
Paris (AFP) June 30, 2015
Tennis players at Wimbledon, fasting Muslims and ailing religious pilgrims in Lourdes were among those at risk from the blast of a major heatwave spreading up through Europe on Tuesday. With temperatures hitting 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in London, tennis players and fans were set for a very sticky Wimbledon tournament, which got underway Monday and is set to be the hottest ... read more


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