Transcript:
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
A heat wave that has shattered records and killed hundreds across Western Europe is now rolling eastward into Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. It remains very hot in Rome, which is where we find reporter Megan Williams.
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MEGAN WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Here in Rome, it’s not the grand tourist fountains that locals flock to in this heat.
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WILLIAMS: It’s these smaller ones in neighborhoods across the city, the iron street-corner spigots that run cold all day, all year. Italy has been sweltering for weeks, with temperatures reaching 104. France recorded its hottest day ever, one town hitting 111 degrees. Spain topped 113, and Britain issued its highest-level heat alert. What scientists once predicted is now a reality. Europe is warming faster than any other inhabited continent, and heat waves like this are the new normal. Across Europe, more than 300 people have died since last week, many drowning as they sought relief in rivers and lakes. Now that heat dome is rolling east.
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WILLIAMS: In Vilnius, Lithuania – which shattered its all-time June record Sunday at 97 degrees – people stroll under umbrellas and line up for ice cream.
AURELIJA BRAZE: I will definitely go to work, as I usually work from home. I don’t have AC at home, and my work office has AC, so I definitely go in.
WILLIAMS: Says finance compliance worker Aurelija Braze. Poland and the Czech Republic both set all-time temperature records this week. But further east in Ukraine, the heat compounds a summer already strained by war.
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WILLIAMS: In Kyiv, families are cooling off at Dnipro River beaches – for most, the only option.
OLENA KLYMENKO: (Speaking Ukranian).
WILLIAMS: “I know the city where the shelters are. Going somewhere unfamiliar would be more stressful than staying in Kyiv,” said resident Olena Klymenko.
For NPR News, I’m Megan Williams in Rome.
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