Extreme Heat Is Killing European Workers Despite Government Efforts
Spain and Greece have for years restricted outdoor work on very hot days, while Italy and France have started this summer.
A worker drinks water in a fountain during the first heatwave of the summer in Ronda, southern Spain, on July 2.
Photographer: Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images
Montse Aguilar was a healthy 51-year-old woman when she started her shift cleaning streets in Barcelona at around 2:30 p.m. on June 28. The Spanish city was under alert for high temperatures amid a brutal heat wave that brought record temperatures for that time of the year across the country. She was responsible for sweeping one of the hottest, dirtiest and more touristic areas — the Raval district.
At the end of the shift, at around 9:30 p.m., she walked back home and asked her elderly mother to prepare dinner because she wasn’t feeling well. She also messaged a friend and told him she felt cramps in her arms, chest and neck, her brother-in-law Manuel Ceacero told Bloomberg Green.