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.
ROFLMAO!!! I can stop reading now.
Yea, but when is it going to rain here? My vegetable garden really could use a good soaking.
Remember the heat wave of 1980 here in St. Louis? Alot of people died in those brick buildings in the city. The flat blacktop roofs make things worse. I don't think the machine shop I worked in ever dropped below 90 degrees.
Now isn't that exactly what the US said about Iraq? Almost verbatim?
Screw those sweaty stinky cheese eating surrender monkeys. Let them surrender to the heat!
I've read on this very thread that it is due to the increased temperature of the 'exhaust' water, it can only be so hot and exhausted into the esturaries.
In other words, it would take about as long as it would if the french were still there...
That's one of the reasons. Warm discharged cooling water apparently isn't what the environmentalists want.
The cooling water that is being used runs through the condensor (think of a big radiator or heat exchanger with the enclosed steam/water being cooled by outside water from the stream) for the purpose of cooling the steam back into water after its useful energy has been expended on the turbine. This condenses the steam into water for 2 purposes - one, to be pumped back into the boiler, and two, when the steam is condensed into water, it creates a vacuum that increases the efficiency of the turbine/generator by pulling the steam through with even more vigor than it would have had. When the cooling water is warm, it does not cool as much, and thus condenses less steam creating less vacuum and less energy output.
Same here in coastal Alabama. The drug store in town was the first to have AC....and they used that fact in their advertising. None of the schools were AC'd, you should hear them scream now when the AC doesn't work at school.
But monsuer, what would happeeen eeef zomeone threw in zee soap???
Also include: 'Daly City (CA)..Known For Absolutely Nothing!'
I like Del Rio, Texas: 'Two Miles From Water And Two Feet From Hell!'
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