The Hindu : International : Southern Europe scorched, heavy rain batters north

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Sunday, Jul 29, 2007
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International

Southern Europe scorched, heavy rain batters north

John Vidal and Kate Connolly

— PHOTO: AP

MAROONED: Riverside houses cut off from the land by flood waters near Henley on the Thames in England.

London: Huge swaths of central and southern Europe were this week engulfed in record temperatures, as other areas recorded their heaviest summer rainfalls and farmers across the continent warned of impending food shortages and price rises.

This summer Europe has been split by climate. Above a line roughly running from the Pyrenees to Bulgaria, three humid months have been punctuated by violent storms and enormous cloudbursts; but to the south there has been a succession of heatwaves, each more intense than the last.

Tens of thousands of acres of forest are believed to have been destroyed by fire. In Hungary 500 persons died from heatstroke and related problems, while in Romania 19,000 were hospitalised as temperatures reached 41C. With wildfires raging from Italy to Albania and Bosnia to Romania, firefighters — aided by Russian water bomber planes — and soldiers have fought to bring them under control. Workers in several countries were ordered by Government decree to down their tools. In Macedonia pregnant women were sent home on paid leave until further notice. Meanwhile farmers across northern Europe are reporting difficulties getting crops such as broccoli, cabbages, lettuces, potatoes and sweetcorn out of fields.

This week they appealed to the E.U. to be allowed to grow food on land that has been taken out of production for environmental reasons.

“It’s been a disaster for livestock farmers who will not have winter feed for their animals and there has been a catastrophic loss of peas and some other vegetables. You can’t even get combine harvesters into fields”, said Paul Temple, vice-president of the National Farmers Union (NFU) in the U.K. More than 60 days of almost non-stop rain followed by high humidity has devastated grape growers in France and Germany, according to the wine website decanter.com. In Bulgaria, which experienced its hottest temperatures in 200 years, yields of maize were 40 per cent below average, while in Romania wheat yields were down a fifth.

In Poland apple harvests were reportedly down by half, and in Hungary a large part of the blueberry stock had perished according to local reports.

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Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007

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