50 per cent of Europe is affected by record-breaking drought, - European Commission. PHOTOS
Around half of the European Union’s territory has been affected by abnormal heat and record-breaking drought.
This is according to a report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, as reported by Censor.NET.
Details
A prolonged lack of rainfall and several consecutive waves of extreme heat have led to the threat of forest fires, disruptions to agriculture and critical water shortages in the continent’s major waterways.
Prolonged periods of high temperatures are taking a devastating toll on public health. In Germany alone, more than 12,500 people have died in recent months as a result of the abnormal temperatures .
In Romania, due to a record drop in the water level of the Danube, the Cernavodă nuclear power station – whose cooling systems require a steady flow of water – had to be temporarily shut down for the first time in 23 years.
The critical shallowing of rivers such as the Danube, the Rhine and the Loire has exposed historic hydrometric marks – the so-called ‘famine stones’. In past centuries, these reliefs on the dry riverbed appeared only once every few decades or centuries and served as harbingers of crop failure and drinking water shortages.
According to forecasts by European climatologists, dry conditions and abnormally high temperatures in most countries of Central and Southern Europe are set to persist, placing additional strain on power grids and water resources.
As a reminder, we previously reported that the abnormal heatwave and the shallowing of rivers have put Europe’s power grid at risk.
