25 of Italy's 27 biggest cities on red alert over deadly heatwave

The health ministry on Tuesday had

almost all of Italy's biggest cities, 25 out of 27, on red alert

due to the danger posed by the high temperatures of the deadly

heatwave that is baking Italy and much of Western Europe.

Cagliari, Catania and Trieste on Tuesday joined the 22 cities

that were already on red alert - Ancona, Bari, Bologna, Bolzano,

Brescia, Campobasso, Civitavecchia, Florence, Frosinone, Genoa,

Latina, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Perugia, Pescara, Rieti, Rome,

Turin, Venice, Verona and Viterbo.

The only two big cities not on red alert are Messina, yellow

alert, and Reggio Calabria, orange.

The health ministry's alert system has three levels in addition

to level zero, green, meaning there is no alert.

Level one, yellow, is pre-alert, while level two, orange, means

the temperatures and weather conditions can pose health risks,

especially for vulnerable groups such as the elderly and the

ill.

Level three, red, means the heat poses a risk to the health of

the general population, not just vulnerable groups.

A 55-year-old Moroccan farm labourer, Haddad Taher, died on

Monday after collapsing while harvesting watermelons in the

fields in the Mantua area, in the latest in a series of deaths

linked to the heatwave.

On Monday the local health authority said a 86-year-old man and

a 74-year-old woman died at Genoa's San Martino Polyclinic

hospital after being admitted amid scorching temperatures.

A wave of thunderstorms is forecast to arrive in Italy on

Tuesday and these are expected to help bring down temperatures,

although they could also cause problems of a different nature.

Scientists say the climate crisis caused by human greenhouse gas

emissions is making extreme weather events such as heatwaves,

droughts, supercharged storms and flooding more frequent and

more intense.

Although there are many sources of the greenhouse gases that are

causing global heating, the main driver is the burning of fossil

fuels such as oil, gas and coal, sales of which generate huge

profits for the world's energy giants.

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