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Added on the 05/07/2022 13:17:18 - Copyright : Euronews EN
As cyclone Belal hits French island Reunion, broken tree branches litter the ground and residents hunker down in their homes under a strict lockdown in the town of Saint Gilles-les-Hauts. Belal isn't as intense of a storm as originally forecast and cyclone alert was downgraded from purple, its highest level, to red at 1pm local time to allow emergency services to intervene and assess the damage. IMAGES
Firefighters work at the site of a blaze in Brazil's Pantanal wetlands, where flames are reaching the major road crossing the area. IMAGES
Shops are shut and protected with wood in Clearwater as hurricane Idalia intensified as it hurtles towards northwest Florida, threatening "catastrophic" impacts including dangerous storm surge, with officials forecasting it will slam the coast within hours as an extreme and historic Category 3 storm. IMAGES
People are queuing and walking outside the Colosseum in Rome in the middle of another heatwave. This comes only days after a hailstorm had briefly brought down the high temepratures in the north of the country. IMAGES
The extreme heat in the northern hemisphere is putting an increasing strain on healthcare systems, hitting hardest those least able to manage its consequences, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says during a weekly virtual briefing. "Extreme heat puts increased pressure on health systems. Exposure to excessive heat has wide-ranging impacts on health, often amplifying existing conditions and resulting in premature death," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tells journalists. SOUNDBITE
In Rome, people brave scorching temperatures as they queue outside the Colosseum. Europe, the globe's fastest-warming continent, is bracing for its hottest-ever temperature this week on Italy's islands of Sicily and Sardinia, where a high of 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit) is predicted, according to the European Space Agency. IMAGES