A fierce anticyclone named after Cerberus, a three-headed monster-dog that features in Dante’s Inferno, had not even ended before Italians were warned that a more intense one called Caronte, or Charon, who in Greek mythology was the ferryman of the dead, was on its way.
Italy sweltered in temperatures reaching highs of 38C over the weekend, while Caronte will grip the country from Monday, sending the mercury beyond 40C in central and southern regions, with the islands of Sicily and Sardinia possibly hitting a peak of 48C.
Italians are used to hot summers. But not this hot, especially as the consecutive heatwaves struck abruptly, and followed a spring and early summer marked by storms, flooding and below average temperatures.
Massimo Borgia, who manages a news stand at Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II in Rome’s Esquilino neighbourhood, has been forced to sell newspapers outside the kiosk as it’s too hot inside.
“I’ve never experienced the heat this bad – it’s not normal,” he said. “We had heavy rain in June and then suddenly it was 40C. Now they say it’s going to be even worse next week.”
Kevin Cosentino, who works at nearby Gatsby, a bar popular with residents and tourists, said: “This is terrible. Apart from making the customers nervous it’s difficult to work.”
Gatsby is located under a portico surrounding the square, in front of an entrance to a metro station, and has a seating area that juts out on to the street.
The air is stifling despite the portico’s protection from the sun. “Sometimes we get a little breeze wafting up from the metro,” said Cosentino, who starts his shift at 4pm and finishes at midnight. “I’m really struggling to sleep,” he added. “Then I’m already tired by the time I start work. It’s not easy working in these conditions.”
Temperatures in Sicily and Sardinia this week could get close to reaching the European record, which was set on 11 August 2021, when a high of 48.8C was registered in Floridia, a town in the Sicilian province of Syracuse.
Research has found there were 61,672 heat-related deaths last summer, the hottest ever recorded in Europe. The mortality rate was highest in Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal. A road worker died of a heat-related illness in Milan last week.
Stefano Battiato, who is involved in Identity Tree, a community art project partly aimed at promoting sustainability and set up in the Nicola Calipari gardens in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, said: “It is slightly cooler here than it is outside the gardens because we have the greenery,” he said. “So you have to drink lots of water and find places like this … as otherwise you end up staying at home or in an air-conditioned shopping centre. But then using air conditioning is a vicious circle that makes the climate crisis worse. People need to become more aware about how to be more sustainable.”
