Posted on 08/11/2003 5:31:13 PM PDT by blam
Weakest 'drop like flies' as 50 die in French heatwave
By Philip Delves Broughton in Paris
(Filed: 12/08/2003)
The elderly are dying "like flies" because of the relentless heat, French doctors said yesterday as undertakers warned that their mortuaries were full.
Paris endured its hottest night since records began in 1873 early yesterday with temperatures of at least 76F (24C), following a day of more than 100F (37F). There was not even the slightest breeze to relieve the furnace conditions.
Nuclear plants have been forced to reduce their electicity output by the intense heat and industry chiefs held an emergency meeting with government officials yesterday to discuss how to stave off power cuts.
Patrick Pelloux, the head of the emergency doctors' union, said the heatwave had claimed 50 lives over the past four days in Paris alone.
The state health advisory said it was difficult to link the heat to specific deaths, but admitted that it was clearly a factor in the rising death rate.
"The weakest are dropping like flies," M Pelloux said. "We've never seen people arriving sick in cartloads like this, frequently with fevers.
"I totally reject the fatalistic view of the national health authority that these are deaths from natural causes. So be it, but what are we supposed to do, sit and watch people fade away? That's intolerable, something has to be done."
France's leading funeral director, Michel Minard, said there was no more space in the capital's funeral parlours and that the newly deceased were being held in refrigerated capsules at their homes until space cleared for them to be taken away. Cemeteries have extended their working hours to accommodate the rush of burials.
M Minard said his company dealt with 50 per cent more deaths in the Paris region last week than in the same period last year, 825 compared to 550, and attributed it to the heat.
The threat to power supplies from France's nuclear industry, which provides more than three-quarters of the country's electricity, comes because its reactors are all located on rivers and coastline.
This enables them to drink up water for cooling before returning it to the rivers and sea at a slightly warmer temperature. But with the heatwave driving up outside water temperatures, plants have been forced to cut output because of limits on the temperature of the water they release.
Several reactors, including the Tricastin plant on the Rhone just north of Provence, have been given temporary permission to release even warmer water than usual from their coolers in order to help them through the summer.
Before the meeting about possible power cuts, the industry minister, Nicole Fontaine, said,: "The situation is very serious. There's no more margin for manoeuvre, it's essential that citizens are ready to accept the consequences."
Both the heat and increased demand for electricity have created the situation, and forced EDF, the state electricity supplier, to fall back on coal-fired generators to make up the shortages. France hopes to avoid what has already happened in Italy, where the heatwave has exposed an ill-run electricity industry.
Italy has already experienced extensive power cuts, caused in part by countries such as France restricting the supply of power to their neighbour to provide for their own needs.
The Italian government is now broadcasting television advertisements advising people to turn out lights and use their dish washers and washing machines only at night so as not to overload the system.
The dry weather and heat has turned French agriculture on its head. Grapes will be picked almost a month earlier than usual and the cornfields were harvested weeks ago.
In the Correze, 713 piglets died on Sunday night for lack of ventilation in their sties. In Paris, the trees are shedding their crinkled, brown leaves with autumn barely in view.
The head of the Paris mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, has called on Muslims to pray for rain.
Don't they know they're supposed to drink lots of water and make sure they get a little more salt in their food during heat waves? Haven't they ever heard of putting a wet sheet in front of a fan?
Around here, we don't see over 100 very often, but its always humid in Tennessee. I have to admit, though, when I was out west a few years ago facing 100 degree heat, someone decided to point out that it was a dry heat. I replied that my oven also provided a dry heat. :)
My usual response is: "That's what the people in Hell say, too..."
Sometimes when it gets real hot somebody raises their arms to cool off and then all bets are off on the killing aspect.
And then it starts heating up.(very bad attempt at humor)
It isn't much different in 95 7 humid - 75 does feel cold. In the peak of summer, I keep the house at 78 and it does feel comfortable (though I admit to turning it down 2 degrees at night an wearing a thin blanket).
I do have to admit though - I'm not as much of an outdoors person as I used to be. I work in an office setting so I don't get as used to the heat as I used to be.
The same sort of thing happens in San Francisco once or twice a year. They're so used to it being about 65 degrees every single day that they can't handle it if it gets above the low 80s. The National Weather Service actually has to issue warnings, and lots of people end up hospitalized or dead, all at temperatures that people almost anywhere else in the country would consider merely annoying.
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