Extreme heat in Spain: the sheets stuck to the body and the fear of using the air conditioning

Burn Madrid. And it’s almost normal these days to wake up before the clock strikes two digits – that is, 7, 8, 9 in the morning – with the sheets stuck to your back as if they were scotch tape.

This Tuesday, at two in the morning, it was already 31 degrees, for example.

“Historic heatwave”, repeat the news like a mantra. And they add meteorologists to their opinion panels as if empirical justification for apocalypse that is lived in the streets of the city will be better tolerated if we predict that these unbreathable thermals will last until the end of July.

This is what meteorologist José Miguel Viñas from the Mateored platform told me. He told me that this heat wave is historic – it reached 40.7 degrees in Madrid – which lasts more than the four or five days that a normal heat wave normally lasts and which we will melt until the end of the month.

To this disheartening forecast by meteorologists is added the specter of the energy crisis, which is real, and which the Spaniards have been listening to politicians about for months.

However, it is difficult to explain to the girl of the house that due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which affects the supply of gas – including that used to generate electricity – throughout Europe, and due to the increase in light, we only turn to an air conditioner. . And little by little.

Not even the relationship between us and the political edges between Spain and Algeria that are leaving the historic Algerian gas supply reaching the Iberian Peninsula at stake.

Air conditioning, yes or no?

“What do I have to do with all this, Mom?” is the question, although we are fortunate that our home is one of 36 per cent of homes in Spain with air conditioning. This was revealed by a study by the Idealista real estate platform based on a million houses and apartments for sale or rent a year ago.

“We open after 4 pm due to malfunctions in our air conditioning system,” says the headquarters of a chain of “cafes and bakery products” in via Ponzano, on the corner with Raimundo Fernández Villaverde. Is this true or do they do it to save money?

Some unions complain that there are supermarket chains that at a certain time they disconnect the refrigeration equipment. Stockers and cashiers disband until their shift is complete.

“I wanted to know why the air conditioning is turned off in the center of El Pinar, in Las Rozas de Madrid, after a while. The workers cook in the heat and these are not ways of working,” complained a customer.

Heat stroke alert

Heatstroke increased between 30 and 40 percent this summer, the Society of Primary Care Physicians say.

In Spain, the heat wave has already caused the death of 510 people121 of whom died in Madrid.

The record day was July 16, when the daily excess temperature mortality monitoring system recorded 150 deaths in 24 hours.

A street sweeper and a worker in a shed literally died of heat and the shock was such that their stories are still in the papers.

José Antonio González, 60, had a contract to sweep the streets for a month and had just changed a colleague’s shift on the day of his death.

“The high temperatures and low relative humidity of the air for several days are producing fires that spread easily and are difficult to control,” says meteorologist Viñas.

A tragedy that also affects several European countries such as Portugal, Italy and France.

Until now, in Spain, more than 60,000 hectares have been burned and 8,000 people have had to leave their homes due to the proximity of the flames. The most serious fires, this Tuesday, are in Zamora, Avila, León, Lugo and Ourense.

The crazy thermometers of Madrid bus stops even say that the temperature is 49 degrees at the corner of the Italian Consulate, in Agustín de Betancourt street, in front of the Ministry of Labor.

walking on hot coals

Despite this, the bars and restaurants do not resign themselves to keeping the tables on the sidewalks which, especially after eight in the evening, continue to fill up for a very cold beer with a spit.

The long asphalt heats up as if walking on hot coals.

In the Arganzuela district, in the neighborhoods of Delicias, Embajadores and Chopera, neighbors are calling for more trees to be planted, roofs and terraces to be painted white to reduce the impact.

The only tree in Puerta del Sol is bronze: it is the one with the statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree.

In the Ebro valley, this Tuesday, 40 degrees will be maintained. And, as a symbol of the extreme situation we are experiencing, environmentalists emphasize that on Mont Blanc, the summit of the Alps which, with its 4,800 meters, is the highest in Europe, there are zero degrees. One degree less would mean thaw and more catastrophe.

Away from Mont Blanc, here in Madrid, people complain that Metro Line 1 runs without air conditioning.

The consolation prize is in the jets that come out of the Madrid Río apartment, near the Manzanares River, where entertainment is no longer of the smallest: every human being that passes gets wet from below.

Bus 45, which connects Chamberí to Legazpi, gives advice on how to avoid heat waves like the one that ended the life of José Antonio, the street sweeper.

He died at five in the afternoon while cleaning a street in Vallecas, a suburb of Madrid.

When they tried to help him, his body temperature was 40 degrees.

That day, she had Google “what is heatstroke,” her son said.

Madrid, correspondent

CB