At a Spanish music festival, part of the stage was torn down by 40 mph gusts, killing one reveller who was 28 years old and injuring 20 others as wildfires and droughts ravage Europe in the biggest climatic disaster in 500 years.
In the wake of the terrible 4 a.m. sandstorm, organisers have stopped the Medusa Event, a massive five-day electronic music festival conducted over six days in the east coast town of Cullera south of Valencia.
This year’s headliners featured French DJ David Guetta.
One guy and numerous revellers were murdered as the winds knocked down several large, heavy metallic structures, including the entrance billboard.
Regional emergency services stated that out of the wounded, at least three had major trauma injuries while the others had relatively minor wounds.
The greatest drought to strike Europe in half a millennium is now wreaking havoc throughout the continent, drying up rivers and lakes and sparking massive wildfires.
The lack of considerable rainfall across Europe’s western, central, and southern areas during the last two months is evident.
Falling water levels have been seen in major arteries like the Danube, Rhine, and Po rivers, and reservoirs in Spain that were formerly full of water are now dry and fractured.
Fires blazed over pine woods overnight in France, which is experiencing its worst drought on record.
The Gironde area, which was previously devastated by flames last month, and the nearby Landes lit up the sky with an intense orange glow.
Since Tuesday, fires have spread across 26 square kilometres.
Volunteers have been gathering dead fish that have washed ashore in Poland and Germany along the Oder River, which runs from Czechia north into the Baltic Sea.
According to Piotr Nieznanski, head of conservation strategy at WWF Poland, it looks that an enterprise spilled a harmful chemical into the river, and the low water levels brought on by the drought have made the situation even more hazardous for the fish.
He urged the government to launch an investigation, saying, “A sad occurrence is unfolding along the Oder Waterway, an international river, and there is no transparent information about what is going on.”
Residents who live near the river have been advised not to swim in it or even touch it.
The drought and high temperatures, according to Poland’s official water management organisation, may cause even little levels of pollution to result in an ecological catastrophe, although the organisation has not yet determined the source of the contamination.
The Conopljankso reservoir’s dry bed in northern Serbia is currently covered with dead fish that were unable to endure the drought.
The Rhine River in Germany was in danger of dropping to a level where it would be impossible to convey products, especially essential energy supplies like coal and gasoline.
The largest lake in Italy, Lake Garda, has been reduced to nearly its lowest level ever recorded as a result of the worst drought Italy has experienced in decades.
This has exposed large areas of previously submerged rocks and caused the water to warm to temperatures that are similar to those of the Caribbean Sea.
For the start of Italy’s important summer long weekend, tourists flocked to the well-known northern lake on Friday, but they discovered a very different environment than in previous years.
Beyond the typical coastline, a long length of bleached rock surrounded the southern Sirmione Peninsula with a yellow halo in contrast to the water’s green tint and the shore’s greenery.
Beatrice Masi, a visitor, stated as she sat on the rocks, “We came last year, we enjoyed it, and we came back this year.” We noticed a significant alteration in the scenery.
When we arrived, we had our customary look around, but the water wasn’t there, so we were a little surprised.
Important rivers like the Po, which runs through Italy’s agricultural and industrial core, have dried up as a result of months without any major rainfall in northern Italy and a 70% decrease in snowfall this year.
This summer, droughts have affected farmers and shippers in numerous European nations, including Spain, Germany, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, and Britain.
As a result, water consumption has been restricted in many of these nations.
Farmers who typically use the Po to irrigate fields and rice paddies have already lost billions of euros as a result of the river’s dry state.
In order to make up for it, officials let 70 cubic metres (2,472 cubic feet) of water per second (more water) to flow out of Lake Garda into nearby rivers.
However, they cut the quantity in late July in order to save the lake and the very profitable tourist it supports.
The lake was 32 centimetres (12.6 inches) above the water table on Friday, close to the record lows in 2003 and 2007. Rivers were receiving 45 cubic metres (1,589 cubic feet) of water each second.
Garda Mayor Davide Bedinelli said that he had to defend both the agricultural sector and the tourism sector.
Despite cancellations, especially from German visitors, during Italy’s most recent heat wave in late July, he asserted that the summer tourism season was doing better than anticipated.
In a post on Facebook on July 20, Bendinelli said, “Drought is a truth that we have to cope with this year, but the tourist season is in no danger.”
He verified that there was a daily water loss of two millimetres (.78 inches) from the lake.
According to seatemperature.org, the lake’s temperature has been higher than usual for August.
On Friday, the water temperature in the Garda reached close to 26 degrees Celsius (78 degrees Fahrenheit), which is much higher than the usual August temperature of 22 C (71.6 F) and almost equal to the average of roughly 27 C for the Caribbean Sea (80 F).
Since there are so many rocks to sunbathe on, Mario Treccani, who owns a lakeside concession of beach chairs and umbrellas, has seen a decrease in the number of customers renting his chairs.
He remarked from the rocks, “The water is generally a metre or more higher.”
He said that sometimes on windy days, waves from the lake might wash up onto the visitors and pointed to a little wall that generally separates the water from the beach chairs.
no longer.
“It’s kind of sad.” You used to be able to hear the sound of the waves breaking here. You don’t hear anything right now, he said.
Thousands of dead fish may be seen covering a huge trench of white dust at the town of Lux, in the former Tille River area of France.
In the midst of one of the hottest and driest summers on record, the UK formally declared a drought throughout southern and central England yesterday.
What experts refer to as the greatest drought in 500 years will reportedly persist. As a result of climate change, similar drought conditions are being reported in east Africa, the western US, and northern Mexico.
This week, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission issued a warning that the drought situation would likely get worse and potentially affect 47% of the continent.
The drought this year, according to Andrea Toreti, a senior researcher at the European Drought Observatory, is “much worse” than the one in 2018.
For the next three months, Toreti said, “We see still a very significant danger of dry weather throughout Western and Central Europe, as well as the UK.”
Back in France, the Tille River, which normally flows at a rate of 8,000 litres (2,100 gallons) per second, is now completely empty, according to Jean-Philippe Couasne, head technician at the regional Federation for Fishing and Protection of the Aquatic Environment.
He remarked, “It’s sad.” Every fish will perish. The oxygen level will continue to drop as the [water] volume decreases since they are stuck upstream and downstream and there is no water entering the area.
These are species that will progressively go extinct.
Diverting the fish to other rivers is not an option, according to Jean-Pierre Sonvico, regional director of the federation, because those waterways are also being impacted by the ongoing drought.
Yes, the situation is dramatic, but what can we do? None,’ he replied. We’re waiting and hoping for storms to bring rain, but since storms are so localised, we can’t rely on it.
The Rhine, Germany’s largest waterway, is at risk for shipping elsewhere because it is expected to drop to dangerously low levels in the coming days.
The city of Kaub’s river may become difficult for large ships to navigate, according to the authorities.
Similar circumstances can be found on the Danube River, where authorities have begun dredging in an effort to keep boats moving.
In Switzerland, a drought and high temperatures have put fish populations in danger, and authorities have started removing fish from some dry creeks.
In the nearly dried-up Heischerbach, Juchbach, and Muehlebach creeks in Hausen, canton of Zurich, officials this week caught hundreds of fish, many of which were brown trout, by anaesthetizing them with electric shocks and immediately placing them in a water tank enriched with oxygen, according to local media.
The fish were then transported to streams with adequate water.
In spite of all the damage brought on by the terrible weather, Swiss officials see one grim benefit: they think there’s a chance of locating some persons who went missing in the Alps recently because their remains are being freed as glaciers melt.
A wrecked aircraft and at least two skeletons have recently been discovered in the Swiss canton of Valais as a result of melting glaciers.
As of Thursday, the remains had not yet been recognised, according to the news website 20Minuten.
Some small boats in Hungary’s Lake Velence near Budapest are trapped because portions of the lake have turned into unrecognisable patches of dried muck.
In an effort to safeguard the animals, aeration and water circulation technology was built, however the water quality has since deteriorated.
Additionally, a swimming restriction during the weekends has been implemented on one local beach.
Barges and vessels that went down on the Po, the longest river in Italy, are now starting to surface.
The popularity of Lake Garda, a popular tourist destination in the nation, has reached historic lows.
More lake water was recently given by the authorities to aid with agriculture, but they quickly halted to safeguard the tourist season.
According to the Met Office, this month was the driest July for England since 1935.
In the UK, the lack of rain has caused grasslands to turn brown and drained reservoirs, rivers, and groundwater.
15 million additional people in the London area will soon be subject to a similar prohibition after millions of others around the nation were previously compelled to stop watering their lawns.
Farmers in the UK are in the worst possible predicament as they risk running out of irrigation water and having to feed their animals winter feed due to a shortage of grass.
According to the organisation Rivers Trust, the kingfisher and trout are in danger due to the drying out of England’s chalk streams, which enable subsurface springs to rise up through a spongy layer of rock.
The drought has had significant effects even on nations like Spain and Portugal, who are used to protracted dry spells.
As the Vinuela reservoir in Malaga fell to 13% capacity, several avocado producers in Andalucia, Spain, were compelled to sacrifice hundreds of trees to prevent the withering of other plants.
Some farmers in Europe have been forced to use tap water for their livestock, using up to 100 litres (26 gallons) per cow per day.
Images of Burgundy’s yellow-brown grass and dusty tractors show how the Seine River, the area’s main source of water, has run dry.
The quantity and quality of Baptiste Colson’s milk-producing animals are declining, according to him. Colson lives in the village of Moloy in eastern France and raises feed crops.
Given that experts predict that EU corn production will be 12.5 million tonnes lower than last year, he stated that he anticipates at least a 30% drop in corn yields.
S&P Global Commodity Insights predicts a 1.6 million tonne decrease in sunflower output.
Baptise Colson said, “We know we’ll have to buy food so the cows can keep making milk.” “The cost will be high from an economic perspective,”
According to meteorologist Peter Hoffmann of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the dry conditions are a result of prolonged dry weather brought on by changes in global weather systems.
According to him, drought worsens throughout the year but is most noticeable in the summer.
The forces that propel the jet stream, which typically brings rainy Atlantic weather to Europe, have been weakened by climate change’s reduction of temperature differences between regions.
Long-lasting heat waves may result from a weaker or unstable jet stream bringing extremely hot air from north Africa to Europe.
The same is true for freezing conditions, in which a vortex of arctic air may produce abnormally cold weather far to the south of where it regularly occurs.