Schools and vaccination centers against Covid-19 closed, streetcars stopped, power cuts, Olympic selection tests shifted and residents taking refuge in "refreshment" centers: Western Canada and the United States were still beating Tuesday, June 29 new “historical” temperature records caused by a “heat dome” of extremely rare intensity. In Canada, dozens of people have died suddenly in the Vancouver area, a peak in mortality likely linked to the heatwave, Canadian federal police said on Tuesday. Two Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) police stations in the Vancouver area have separately announced that at least 69 people have died suddenly since Monday.
"We believe that the heat contributed to the majority of the deaths"
, said a police statement, adding that most of the victims are elderly.
Read also: United States and Canada: a heat wave probably worsened by climate change
In Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, two large cities in the northwestern United States known for their cold and humid climates, the temperature reached its highest level ever since records began, in 1940. It was 46.1 degrees Celsius at the Portland airport Monday afternoon (after a record 44.4 degrees the day before) and 41.6 degrees at Seattle, according to readings by the weather service. American (NWS), while the seasonal norms are more around 21 ° C. But it is western Canada that still holds the palm. In Lytton, a village northeast of Vancouver, the record set the day before was broken again: the mercury climbed Monday to 47.9 degrees.The highest temperature ever recorded in Canada before this heat wave was 45 degrees in 1937.
In the region, air conditioners and fans are out of stock.
Cities have opened refreshment centers.
Vaccination campaigns against Covid-19 have been canceled, and schools closed.
"A prolonged, dangerous and historic heat wave will persist throughout this week,"
Environment Canada warned, issuing alerts for British Columbia, Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan, Northern Territories. West and Yukon, border with Alaska.
"We are the second coldest country in the world and the snowiest," so little used to this "desert heat, very dry," David Phillips, chief climatologist of Environment Canada, told AFP on Monday.
"The impression of being in the desert"
Across the border, too, Americans are suffering from sweltering temperatures in the northwestern states.
"This level of heat is extremely dangerous,"
the NWS warned on Monday. A Seattle market, the Ballard Farmers Market, had to close earlier, probably a first
"because of the heat,"
director Doug Farr told AFP.
"Most of the time it's because of the snow."
The Amazon group announced Monday that it was opening part of its Seattle headquarters to the public to make it a refreshment point with a capacity of a thousand seats. Many homes do not have air conditioners in this generally very temperate city.
The average temperature for June in Seattle is 19 degrees Celsius.
"At 21 degrees, it's a good day, everyone is outside in shorts and a T-shirt, but now it becomes absurd"
, launches a resident of Seattle, saying to have
"the impression of being in the desert "
.
In Portland, too, many residents have taken refuge in the cool on mattresses and folding chairs in air-conditioned places improvised by local authorities.
Not far from there, in the city of Eugene, the last events of the American Olympic athletics selections had to be postponed on Sunday due to the heatwave.
Read also: Climate: "The worst is yet to come", according to IPCC experts
The extreme heat, combined with an intense drought in the American West, favored several fires that broke out over the weekend. The "Lava Fire", on the edge of Oregon and California, had already burned some 600 hectares Monday morning, forcing the authorities to evacuate some residents and to close a national road. This heat wave is caused by a phenomenon called "heat dome": high pressures trap hot air in the region. What cause
"serious"
concerns for health, notes the Canadian David Phillips. Especially since it has lasted for several days.
The intensity of this "heat dome" is "so statistically rare that you might only expect it once every few thousand years on average," the Washington Post weather specialists wrote. "But human-induced climate change has made these kinds of exceptional events more likely." According to Nick Bond, climatologist at the University of Washington, climate change is a factor here, certainly, but "secondary". “The main element is this very unusual weather model” of the heat dome, he told AFP. That being said, “climate change is real, our temperatures have warmed up here”, which “made this episode of heat even more severe”.